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Marriage, family, law and politics 1947–1959

IF GOING UP TO OXFORD is one sort of shock, coming down is quite another. I had made many like-minded friends at Oxford, I had enjoyed my adventures in chemistry and I was passionately interested in university politics. It was a wrench to leave all that behind.

The newly created Oxford University Appointments Committee, which helped new graduates to find suitable jobs, arranged several interviews for me, including one at a Northern ICI plant. We hopefuls were interviewed by several managers whose written comments were passed on to the general manager, who gave us our final interview. The remarks on me were lying on the table at the interview, and I could not resist using my faculty for reading upside down. They were both encouraging and discouraging; one manager had written: ‘This young woman has much too strong a personality to work here.’ In fact, I had three or four interviews with other companies and eventually I was taken on by BX Plastics at Manningtree just outside Colchester to work in their research and development section. BX produced a full range of plastics both for industrial use and consumer use, including for films.

It had been understood when we originally discussed the position that it would involve my being in effect Personal Assistant to the Research and Development Director. I had been looking forward to this because I thought it would allow me to get to know more of how the company as a whole operated and also to use the talents I had, over and above my knowledge of chemistry. But on my arrival it was decided that there was not enough to do in that capacity and so I found myself donning my white coat again and immersing myself in the wonderful world of plastics. By the time Christmas 1947 was approaching I had made one or two friends and the Section moved into a separate and rather pleasant house in nearby Lawford. Like many others at the company, I lived in Colchester – a town which I increasingly came to like and where I had found comfortable lodgings. A bus took us all out to Lawford every day.

And, as always with me, there was politics. I immediately joined the Conservative Association and threw myself into the usual round of Party activities. In particular, I thoroughly enjoyed what was called the ‘39–45’ discussion group, where Conservatives of the war generation met to exchange views and argue about the political topics of the day. I also kept in touch with friends like Edward Boyle, who was later adopted for a Birmingham seat in the 1950 election. It was as a representative of the Oxford University Graduate Conservative Association (OUGCA) that I went to the Llandudno Conservative Party Conference in October 1948.

It had originally been intended that I should speak at the Conference, seconding an OUGCA motion deploring the abolition of university seats. At that time universities had separate representation in Parliament, and graduates had the right to vote in their universities as well as in the constituency where they lived. (I supported separate university representation, but not the principle that graduates should have more than one vote; my view was that graduates should be able to choose to vote in one or the other constituency.) It would have been my first Conference speech, but in the end the seconder chosen was a City man, because the City seats were also to be abolished.

My disappointment at this was very quickly overcome in a most unexpected way. After one of the debates, I found myself engaged in one of those speculative conversations which young people have about their future prospects. An Oxford friend, John Grant, said he supposed that one day I would like to be a Member of Parliament. ‘Well, yes,’ I replied, ‘but there’s not much hope of that. The chances of my being selected are just nil at the moment.’ I might have added that with no private income of my own there was no way I could have afforded to be an MP on the salary then available. I had not even tried to get on the Party’s list of approved candidates.

Later in the day, John Grant happened to be sitting next to the Chairman of the Dartford Conservative Association, John Miller. The Association was in search of a candidate. I learned afterwards that the conversation went something like this: ‘I understand that you’re still looking for a candidate at Dartford?’ (In fact, Conservative Central Office was becoming exasperated at Dartford’s failure to pick someone to fight the seat in an election that had to take place in 1950 and might be called before then.)

‘That’s right. Any suggestions?’

‘Well, there’s a young woman, Margaret Roberts, that you might look at. She’s very good.’

‘Oh, but Dartford is a real industrial stronghold. I don’t think a woman would do at all.’

‘Well, why not just look at her?’

And they did. I was invited to have lunch with John Miller and his wife, Phee, and the Dartford Women’s Chairman, Mrs Fletcher, on the Saturday on Llandudno Pier. Presumably, and in spite of any reservations about the suitability of a woman candidate for their seat, they liked what they saw. I certainly got on well with them. The Millers were to become close friends and I quickly developed a healthy respect for the dignified Mrs Fletcher. After lunch we walked back to the Conference Hall in good time for a place to hear Winston Churchill give the Party Leader’s speech. It was the first we had seen of him that week, because in those days the Leader did not attend the Conference itself, appearing only at a final rally on the Saturday. Foreign affairs naturally dominated his speech – it was the time of the Berlin blockade and the western airlift – and his message was sombre, telling us that only American nuclear weapons stood between Europe and communist tyranny and warning of ‘what seems a remorselessly approaching third world war’.

I did not hear from Dartford until December, when I was asked to attend an interview at Palace Chambers, Bridge Street – then housing Conservative Central Office – not far from Parliament itself. With a large number of other hopefuls I turned up on the evening of Thursday 30 December for my first Selection Committee. Very few outside the political arena know just how nerve-racking such occasions are. The interviewee who is not nervous and tense is very likely to perform badly: for, as any chemist will tell you, the adrenaline needs to flow if one is to perform at one’s best. I was lucky in that at Dartford there were some friendly faces around the table.

I found myself short-listed, and was asked to go to Dartford itself for a further interview. Finally, I was invited to the Bull Hotel in Dartford on Monday 31 January 1949 to address the Association’s Executive Committee of about fifty people. As one of five would-be candidates, I had to give a fifteen-minute speech and answer questions for a further ten minutes.

It was the questions which were more likely to cause me trouble. There was a good deal of suspicion of women candidates, particularly in what was regarded as a tough industrial seat like Dartford. This was quite definitely a man’s world into which not just angels feared to tread. There was, of course, little hope of winning it for the Conservatives, though this is never a point that the prospective candidate even in a Labour seat as safe as Ebbw Vale would be advised to make. The Labour majority was an all but unscalable 20,000. But perhaps this turned to my favour. Why not take the risk of adopting the young Margaret Roberts? There was not much to lose, and some good publicity for the Party to gain.

The most reliable sign that a political occasion has gone well is that you have enjoyed it. I enjoyed that evening at Dartford, and the outcome justified my confidence. I was selected. Afterwards I stayed behind for drinks and something to eat with the officers of the Association. The candidate is not the only one to be overwhelmed by relief on these occasions. The selectors too can stop acting as critics and start to become friends. The happy, if still slightly bewildered young candidate, is deluged with advice, information and offers of help. Such friendly occasions provide at least part of the answer to that question put to all professional politicians: ‘Why on earth do you do it?’

My next step was to be approved by the national Party. Usually Party approval precedes selection, but when I went to Central Office the day after to meet the Women’s Chairman, Miss Marjorie Maxse, I had no difficulties. A few weeks afterwards I was invited to dinner to meet the Party Chairman Lord Woolton, his deputy J.P.L. Thomas, Miss Maxse and the Area Agent, Miss Beryl Cook. Over the next few years Marjorie Maxse and Beryl Cook proved to be strong supporters and they gave me much useful advice.

After selection comes adoption. The formal adoption meeting is the first opportunity a candidate has to impress him or herself on the rank and file of the Association. It is therefore a psychologically important occasion. It is also a chance to gain some good local publicity, for the press are invited too. Perhaps what meant most to me, however, was the presence of my father. For the first time he and I stood on the same platform to address a meeting. He recalled how his family had always been Liberal, but that now it was the Conservatives who stood for the old Liberalism. In my own speech I too took up a theme which was Gladstonian in content if not quite style (or length), urging that ‘the Government should do what any good housewife would do if money was short – look at their accounts and see what’s wrong’.

After the adoption meeting at the end of February I was invited back by two leading lights of the Association, Mr and Mrs Soward, to a supper party they had arranged in my honour. Their house was at the Erith end of the constituency, not far from the factory of the Atlas Preservative Company, which made paint and chemicals, where Stanley Soward was a director. His boss, the Managing Director, had been at my adoption meeting and was one of the dinner guests: and so it was that I met Denis.

It was clear to me at once that Denis was an exceptional man. He knew at least as much about politics as I did and a good deal more about economics. His professional interest in paint and mine in plastics may seem an unromantic foundation for friendship, but it also enabled us right away to establish a joint interest in science. And as the evening wore on I discovered that his views were no-nonsense Conservatism.

After the evening was over he drove me back to London so that I could catch the midnight train to Colchester. It was not a long drive at that time of night, but long enough to find that we had still more in common. Denis is an avid reader, especially of history, biography and detective novels. He seemed to have read every article in the Economist and the Banker, and we found that we both enjoyed music – Denis with his love of opera, and me with mine of choral music.

From then on we met from time to time at constituency functions, and began to see more of each other outside the constituency. He had a certain style and dash. He had a penchant for fast cars and drove a Jaguar and, being ten years older, he simply knew more of the world than I did. At first our meetings revolved around political discussion. But as we saw more of each other, we started going to the occasional play and had dinner together. Like any couple, we had our favourite restaurants, small pasta places in Soho for normal dates, the wonderful White Tower in Fitzrovia, the Ecu de France in Jermyn Street and The Ivy for special occasions. I was very flattered by Denis’s attentions, but I first began to suspect he might be serious when the Christmas after my first election campaign at Dartford I received from him a charming present of a crystal powder bowl with a silver top, which I still treasure.

We might perhaps have got married sooner, but my passion for politics and his for rugby football – Saturdays were never available for a date – both got in the way. He more than made up for this by being an immense help in the constituency – problems were solved in a trice and all the logistics taken care of. Indeed, the fact that he had proposed to me and that we had become engaged was one final inadvertent political service, because unbeknown to me Beryl Cook leaked the news just before election day to give my campaign a final boost.

When Denis asked me to be his wife, I thought long and hard about it. I had so much set my heart on politics that I really hadn’t figured marriage in my plans. I suppose I pushed it to the back of my mind and simply assumed that it would occur of its own accord at some time in the future. I know that Denis too, because a wartime marriage had ended in divorce, only asked me to be his wife after much reflection. But the more I considered, the surer I was. More than forty years later I know that my decision to say ‘yes’ was one of the best I ever made.

I had in any case been thinking of leaving BX Plastics and Colchester for some time. It was my selection for Dartford that persuaded me I had to look for a new job in London. I had told the Selection Committee that I would fight Dartford with all the energy at my disposal, and I meant it. Nor was I temperamentally inclined to do otherwise. So I began to look for a London-based job which would give me about £500 a year – not a princely sum even in those days, but one which would allow me to live comfortably if modestly. I went for several interviews, but found that they were not keen to take on someone who was hoping to leave to take up a political career. I was certainly not going to disguise my political ambitions, so I just kept on looking. Finally, I was taken on by J. Lyons in Hammersmith as a food research chemist and moved into lodgings in the constituency.

Dartford became my home in every sense. The families I lived with fussed over me and could not have been kinder, their natural good nature undoubtedly supplemented by the fact that they were ardent Tories. The Millers also took me under their wing. After evening meetings I would regularly go back to their house to unwind over a cup of coffee. It was a cheerful household in which everyone seemed to be determined to enjoy themselves after the worst of the wartime stringencies were over. We regularly went out to political and non-political functions, and the ladies made an extra effort to wear something smart. John Miller’s father – a widower – lived with the family and was a great friend to me: whenever there was a party he would send me a pink carnation as a buttonhole.

I also used to drive out to the neighbouring North Kent constituencies: the four Associations – Dartford, Bexley Heath (where Ted Heath was the candidate), Chislehurst (Pat Hornsby-Smith) and Gravesend (John Lowe) – worked closely together and had a joint President in Morris Wheeler. From time to time he would bring us all together at his large house, ‘Franks’, at Horton Kirby.

Of the four constituencies, Dartford was by far the least winnable, and therefore doubtless in the eyes of its neighbours – though not Dartford’s – the least important. But there is always good political sense in linking safe constituencies with hopeless cases. If an active organization can be built up in the latter there is a good chance of drawing away your opponents’ party workers from the political territory you need to hold. This was one of the services which Central Office expected of us to help Ted Heath in the winnable seat of Bexley.

It was thus that I met Ted. He was already the candidate for Bexley, and Central Office asked me to speak in the constituency. Ted was an established figure. He had fought in the war, ending up as a Lieutenant-Colonel; his political experience went back to the late 1930s when he had supported an anti-Munich candidate in the Oxford by-election; and he had won the respect of Central Office and the four Associations. When we met I was struck by his crisp and logical approach – he always seemed to have a list of four aims, or five methods of attack. Though friendly with his constituency workers, he was always very much the man in charge, ‘the candidate’, or ‘the Member’, and this made him seem, even when at his most affable, somewhat aloof and alone.

Pat Hornsby-Smith, his next-door neighbour at Chislehurst, could not have been a greater contrast. She was a fiery, vivacious redhead and perhaps the star woman politician of the time. She had brought the Tory Conference to its feet with a rousing right-wing speech in 1946, and was always ready to lend a hand to other young colleagues. She and I became great friends, and had long political talks at her informal supper parties.

Well before the 1950 election we were all conscious of a Conservative revival. This was less the result of fundamental rethinking within the Conservative Party than of a strong reaction both among Conservatives and in the country at large against the socialism of the Attlee Government.

The 1950 election campaign was the most exhausting few weeks I had ever spent. Unlike today’s election campaigns, we had well-attended public meetings almost every night, and so I would have to prepare my speech some time during the day. I also wrote my letters to prospective constituents. Then, most afternoons, it was a matter of doorstep canvassing and, as a little light relief, blaring out the message by megaphone. I was well supported by my family: my father came to speak and my sister to help.

Before the election Lady Williams (wife of Sir Herbert Williams, veteran tariff reformer and a Croydon MP for many years) told candidates that we should make a special effort to identify ourselves by the particular way we dressed when we were campaigning. I took this very seriously and spent my days in a tailored black suit and a hat which I bought in Bourne and Hollingsworth in Oxford Street specially for the occasion. And, just to make sure, I put a black and white ribbon around it with some blue inside the bow. Quite whether these precautions were necessary is another matter. How many other twenty-four-year-old girls could be found standing on a soapbox in Erith Shopping Centre? In those days it was not often done for women candidates to canvass in factories. But I did – inside and outside. There was always a lively if sometimes noisy reception. The socialists in Dartford became quite irked until it turned out that their candidate – the sitting MP Norman Dodds – would have had the same facilities extended to him if they had thought of asking. It was only the pubs that I did not like going into, and indeed would not do so alone. Some inhibitions die hard.

I was lucky to have an opponent like Norman Dodds, a genuine and extremely chivalrous socialist of the old school. He knew that he was going to win, and he was a big enough man to give an ambitious young woman with totally different opinions a chance. Soon after I was adopted he challenged me to a debate in the hall of the local grammar school and, of course, I eagerly accepted. He and I made opening speeches, there were questions and then we each wound up our case. Each side had its own supporters, and the noise was terrific. Later in the campaign there was an equally vigorous and inconclusive re-run. What made it all such fun was that the argument was about issues and facts, not personalities. On one occasion, a national newspaper reported that Norman Dodds thought a great deal of my beauty but not a lot of my election chances – or of my brains. This perfect socialist gentleman promptly wrote to me disclaiming the statement – or at least the last part.

My own public meetings were also well attended. It was not unusual for the doors of our hall to be closed twenty minutes before the meeting was due to start because so many people were crowding in. Certainly, in those days one advantage of being a woman was that there was a basic courtesy towards us on which we could draw – something which today’s feminists have largely dissipated. So, for example, on one occasion I arrived at a public meeting to find the visiting speaker, the former Air Minister Lord Balfour of Inchrye, facing a minor revolution from hecklers in the audience – to such an extent indeed that the police had been sent for. I told the organizers to cancel the request, and sure enough once I took my place on the platform and started to speak the tumult subsided and order – if not exactly harmony – was restored.

I was also fortunate in the national and indeed international publicity which my candidature received. At twenty-four, I was the youngest woman candidate fighting the 1950 campaign, and as such was an obvious subject for comment. I was asked to write on the role of women in politics. My photograph made its way into Life magazine, the Illustrated London News where it rubbed shoulders with those of the great men of politics, and even the West German press where I was described as a ‘junge Dame mit Charme’ (perhaps for the last time).

The slogans, coined by me, gained in directness whatever they lacked in subtlety – ‘Vote Right to Keep What’s Left’ and, still more to the point, ‘Stop the Rot, Sack the Lot’.

I felt that our hard work had been worthwhile when I heard the result at the count in the local grammar school. I had cut the Labour majority by 6,000. It was in the early hours at Lord Camrose’s Daily Telegraph party at the Savoy Hotel – to which candidates, MPs, ministers, Opposition figures and social dignitaries were in those days all invited – that I experienced the same bittersweet feeling about the national result, where the Conservatives had cut Labour’s overall majority from 146 to 5 seats. But victory it was not.

I should recall, however, one peculiar experience I had as candidate for Dartford. I was asked to open a Conservative fête in Orpington and was reluctantly persuaded to have my fortune told while I was there. Some fortune tellers have a preference for crystal balls. This one apparently preferred jewellery. I was told to take off my string of pearls so that they could be felt and rubbed as a source of supernatural inspiration. The message received was certainly optimistic: ‘You will be great – great as Churchill.’ Most politicians have a superstitious streak; even so, this struck me as quite ridiculous. Still, so much turns on luck that anything that seems to bring a little with it is more than welcome. From then on I regarded my pearls as lucky. And, all in all, they seem to have proved so.

As I have said, the 1950 result was inconclusive. After the initial exhilaration dies away such results leave all concerned with a sense of anti-climax. There seemed little doubt that Labour had been fatally wounded and that the coup de grâce would be administered in a second general election fairly shortly. But in the meantime there was a good deal of uncertainty nationally and if I were to pursue my political career further I needed to set about finding a winnable seat. But I felt morally bound to fight the Dartford constituency again. It would be wrong to leave them to find another candidate at such short notice. Moreover, it was difficult to imagine that I would be able to make the kind of impact in a second campaign that I had in the one just concluded. I was also extremely tired and, though no one with political blood in their veins shies away from the excitement of electioneering, another campaign within a short while was not an attractive prospect.

I had also decided to move to London. I had found a very small flat in St George’s Square Mews, in Pimlico. Mr Soward (Senior) came down from Dartford to help me decorate it. I was able to see a good deal more of Denis and in more relaxing conditions than in the hubbub of Conservative activism in Dartford.

I also learned to drive and acquired my first car. My sister, Muriel, had a pre-war Ford Prefect which my father had bought her for £129, and I now inherited it. My Ford Prefect became well known around Dartford, where I was re-adopted, and did me excellent service until I sold it for about the same sum when I got married.

The general election came in October 1951. This time I shaved another 1,000 votes off Norman Dodds’s majority and was hugely delighted to discover when all the results were in that the Conservatives now had an overall majority of seventeen.

During my time at Dartford I had continued to widen my acquaintanceship with senior figures in the Party. I had spoken as proposer of a vote of thanks to Anthony Eden (whom I had first met in Oxford) when he addressed a large and enthusiastic rally at Dartford football ground in 1949. The following year I spoke as seconder of a motion applauding the leadership of Churchill and Eden at a rally of Conservative Women at the Albert Hall, to which Churchill himself replied in vintage form. This was a great occasion for me – to meet in the flesh and talk to the leader whose words had so inspired me as I sat with my family around our wireless in Grantham. In 1950 I was appointed as representative of the Conservative Graduates to the Conservative Party’s National Union Executive, which gave me my first insight into Party organization at the national level.

The greatest social events in my diary were the Eve of (parliamentary) Session parties held by Sir Alfred Bossom, the Member for Maidstone, at his magnificent house, No. 5 Carlton Gardens.

Several marquees were put up, brilliantly lit and comfortably heated, in which the greatest and the not so great – like one Margaret Roberts – would mingle convivially. Sir Alfred Bossom would cheerily describe himself as the day’s successor to Lady Londonderry, the great Conservative hostess of the inter-war years. You would hardly have guessed that behind his amiable and easygoing exterior was a genius who had devised the revolutionary designs of some of the first skyscrapers in New York. He was specially kind and generous to me. It was his house from which I was married, and there that our reception was held; and it was he who proposed the toast to our happiness.

I was married on a cold and foggy December day at Wesley’s Chapel, City Road. It was more convenient for all concerned that the ceremony take place in London, but it was the Methodist minister from Grantham, our old friend the Rev. Skinner, who assisted the Rev. Spivey, the minister at City Road. Then all our friends – from Grantham, Dartford, Erith and London – came back to Sir Alfred Bossom’s. Finally, Denis swept me off to our honeymoon in Madeira, where I quickly recovered from the bone-shaking experience of my first and last aquatic landing in a seaplane to begin my married life against the background of that lovely island.

On our return from Madeira I moved into Denis’s flat in Swan Court, Flood Street in Chelsea. It was a light, sixth-floor flat with a fine view of London. It was also the first time I learned the convenience of living all on one level. As I would find again in the flat at 10 Downing Street, this makes life far easier to run. There was plenty of space – a large room which served as a sitting room and dining room, two good-sized bedrooms, another room which Denis used as a study and so on. Denis drove off to Erith every morning and would come back quite late in the evening. We quickly made friends with our neighbours; one advantage of living in a block of flats with a lift is that you meet everyone.

People felt that after all the sacrifices of the previous twenty years, they wanted to enjoy themselves, to get a little fun out of life. Although I may have been perhaps rather more serious than my contemporaries, Denis and I enjoyed ourselves quite as much as most, and more than some. We went to the theatre, we took holidays in Rome and Paris (albeit in very modest hotels), we gave parties and went to them, we had a wonderful time.

But the high point of our lives at that time was the coronation of Queen Elizabeth in June 1953. Those who had televisions – we did not – held house parties to which all their friends came to watch the great occasion. Denis and I, passionate devotees of the monarchy that we were, decided the occasion merited the extravagance of a seat in the covered stand erected in Parliament Square just opposite the entrance to Westminster Abbey. The tickets were an even wiser investment than Denis knew when he bought them, for it poured all day and most people in the audience were drenched – not to speak of those in the open carriages of the great procession. The Queen of Tonga never wore that dress again. Mine lived to see another day.

Pleasant though married life was in London, I still had time enough after housework to pursue a long-standing intellectual interest in the law. As with my fascination with politics, it was my father who had been responsible for stimulating this interest. Although he was not a magistrate, as Mayor of Grantham in 1945–46 my father would automatically sit on the Bench. During my university vacations I would go along with him to the Quarter Sessions (where many minor criminal offences were tried), at which an experienced lawyer would be in the chair as Recorder. On one such occasion my father and I lunched with him, a King’s Counsel called Norman Winning. I was captivated by what I saw in court, but I was enthralled by Norman Winning’s conversation about the theory and practice of law. At one point I blurted out: ‘I wish I could be a lawyer; but all I know about is chemistry and I can’t change what I’m reading at Oxford now.’ But Norman Winning said that he himself had read physics for his first degree at Cambridge before changing to law as a second degree. I objected that there was no way I could afford to stay on all those extra years at university. He replied that there was another way, perfectly possible but very hard work, which was to get a job in or near London, join one of the Inns of Court and study for my law exams in the evenings. And this in 1950 is precisely what I had done. Now with Denis’s support I could afford to concentrate on legal studies without taking up new employment. There was a great deal to read, and I also attended courses at the Council of Legal Education.

I had decided that what with running a home and reading for the Bar I would have to put my political ambitions on ice for some time to come. At twenty-six I could afford to do that and I told Conservative Central Office that such was my intention. But as a young woman candidate I still attracted occasional public attention. For example, in February 1952 an article of mine appeared in the Sunday Graphic on the position of women ‘At the Dawn of the New Elizabethan Era’. I was also on the list of sought-after Party speakers and was invited to constituencies up and down the country. In any case, try as I would, my fascination for politics got the better of all contrary resolutions.

I talked it over with Denis and he said that he would support me all the way. So in June I went to see Beryl Cook at Central Office and told her: ‘It’s no use. I must face it. I don’t like being left out of the political stream.’ As I knew she would, ‘Auntie Beryl’ gave me her full support and referred me to John Hare, the Party Vice-Chairman for Candidates. In the kindest possible way, he told me about the pressures which membership of the House of Commons placed on family life, but I said that Denis and I had talked it through and this was something we were prepared to face. I said that I would like to have the chance of fighting a marginal or safe seat next time round. We both agreed that, given my other commitments, this should be in London itself or within a radius of thirty miles. I promptly asked to be considered for Canterbury, which was due to select a candidate. I left Central Office very pleased with the outcome – though I did not get Canterbury.

The question which John Hare had raised with me about how I would combine my home life with politics was soon to become even more sensitive. For in August 1953 the twins, Mark and Carol, put in an appearance. Late one Thursday night, some six weeks before what we still called ‘the baby’ was due, I began to have pains. I had seen the doctor that day and he asked me to come back on the Monday for an X-ray because there was something he wanted to check. Now Monday seemed a very long way away, and off I was immediately taken to hospital. I was given a sedative which helped me sleep through the night. Then on Friday morning the X-ray was taken and to the great surprise of all it was discovered that I was to be the mother of twins. Unfortunately, that was not the whole story. The situation required a Caesarean operation the following day. The two tiny babies – a boy and a girl – had to wait a little before they saw their father. For Denis, imagining that all was progressing smoothly, had very sensibly gone to the Oval to watch the Test Match and it proved quite impossible to contact him. On that day he received two pieces of good but equally surprising news. England won the Ashes, and he found himself the proud father of twins.

I had to stay in hospital for over a fortnight: this meant that after the first few uncomfortable days of recovery I found myself with time on my hands. The first and most immediate task was to telephone all the relevant stores to order two rather than just one of everything. Oddly enough, the very depth of the relief and happiness at having brought Mark and Carol into the world made me uneasy. The pull of a mother towards her children is perhaps the strongest and most instinctive emotion we have. I was never one of those people who regarded being ‘just’ a mother or indeed ‘just’ a housewife as second best. Indeed, whenever I heard such implicit assumptions made both before and after I became Prime Minister it would make me very angry indeed. Of course, to be a mother and a housewife is a vocation of a very high kind. But I simply felt that it was not the whole of my vocation. I knew that I also wanted a career. A phrase that Irene Ward, MP for Tynemouth, and I often used was that ‘while the home must always be the centre of one’s life, it should not be the boundary of one’s ambitions’. Indeed, I needed a career because, quite simply, that was the sort of person I was. And not just any career. I wanted one which would keep me mentally active and prepare me for the political future for which I believed I was well suited.

So it was that at the end of my first week in hospital I came to a decision. I had the application form for my Bar finals in December sent to me. I filled it in and sent off the money for the exam, knowing that this little psychological trick I was playing on myself would ensure that I plunged into legal studies on my return to Swan Court with the twins, and that I would have to organize our lives so as to allow me to be both a mother and a professional woman.

This was not as difficult as it might sound. The flat was large enough, though being on the sixth floor, we had to have bars put on all the windows. And without a garden, the twins had to be taken out twice a day to Ranelagh Gardens. But this turned out to be good for them because they became used to meeting and playing with other children – though early on, when we did not know the rules, we had our ball confiscated by the Park Superintendent. Usually, however, it was the nanny, Barbara, who took Mark and Carol to the park, except at weekends when I took over. Barbara turned out to be a marvellous friend to the children.

Not long after I had the twins, John Hare wrote to me from Central Office:

I was delighted to hear that you had had twins. How very clever of you. How is this going to affect your position as a candidate? I have gaily been putting your name forward; if you would like me to desist, please say so.

I replied thanking him and noting:

Having unexpectedly produced twins – we had no idea there were two of them until the day they were born – I think I had better not consider a candidature for at least six months. The household needs considerable reorganization and a reliable nurse must be found before I can feel free to pursue such other activities with the necessary fervour.

So my name was, as John Hare put it, kept ‘in cold storage for the time being’. It was incumbent on me to say when I would like to come onto the active list of candidates again.

My self-prescribed six months of political limbo were quickly over. I duly passed my Bar finals. I had begun by considering specializing in patent law but it seemed that the opportunities there were very limited and so perhaps tax law would be a better bet. In any case, I would need a foundation in the criminal law first. So in December 1953 I joined Frederick Lawton’s Chambers in the Inner Temple for a six months’ pupillage. Fred Lawton’s was a common law Chambers. He was, indeed, one of the most brilliant criminal lawyers I ever knew. He was witty, with no illusions about human nature or his own profession, extraordinarily lucid in exposition, and a kind guide to me.

In fact, I was to go through no fewer than four sets of Chambers, partly because I had to gain a grounding in several fields before I was competent to specialize in tax. So I witnessed the rhetorical fireworks of the Criminal Bar, admired the precise draftsmanship of the Chancery Bar and then delved into the details of company law. But I became increasingly confident that tax law could be my forte. It was a meeting point with my interest in politics; it offered the right mixture of theory and practical substance; and of one thing we could all be sure – there would never be a shortage of clients desperate to cut their way out of the jungle of over-complex and constantly changing tax law.

Studying, observing, discussing and eventually practising law had a profound effect on my political outlook. In this I was probably unusual. Familiarity with the law usually breeds if not contempt, at least a large measure of cynicism. For me, however, it gave a richer significance to that expression ‘the rule of law’ which so easily tripped off the Conservative tongue.

When politics is in your blood, every circumstance seems to lead you back to it. Whether pondering Dicey,* poring over the intricacies of tax law or discussing current issues with other members of the Inns of Court Conservative Society, political questions insisted on taking centre stage in my imagination. So when in December 1954 I heard that there was a vacancy for the Conservative candidature in Orpington – which of course, being next to my old constituency of Dartford, I knew, and which was not too far from London – I telephoned Central Office and asked to have my name put forward. I was interviewed and placed on the shortlist. Sitting just outside the selection meeting with Denis, I heard Donald Sumner, the local candidate (and Association Chairman), advancing in his speech the decisive argument that in Orpington what they really needed was ‘a Member who really knows what is going on in the constituency – who knows the state of the roads in Locksbottom’. Denis and I roared with laughter. But Donald Sumner got the seat.

I was naturally disappointed by the decision, because Orpington would have been an ideal constituency for me. It seemed extremely unlikely now that a similarly suitable seat would become available before what looked like an increasingly imminent general election. So I wrote to John Hare to say that I would now ‘continue at the Bar with no further thought of a parliamentary career for many years’. Knowing me better than I knew myself perhaps, he wrote back urging me at least to reconsider if a winnable seat in Kent became available. But I was adamant, though I made it clear that I would always be available to speak in constituencies and would of course be active in the general election campaign.

Although I was in general a loyal Conservative, I had felt for some time that the Government could have moved further and faster in dismantling socialism and installing free enterprise policies. But it had not been easy for them to persuade popular opinion – or indeed themselves – that a somewhat stronger brew would be palatable. In fact, by 1955 a good deal of modest progress had been made as regards the removal of controls and, even more modestly, returning nationalized industries to the private sector.

In April 1955 Churchill resigned as Prime Minister to be succeeded by Anthony Eden, and there was in quick succession a snap general election, a new Conservative Government, the débâcle of Suez and the arrival at No. 10 of Harold Macmillan, the wizard of change.

During the general election campaign of May 1955 I spoke in a number of constituencies. But for me it was generally a dull affair. Once you have been a candidate everything else palls. Moreover, there was very little doubt of the outcome on this occasion. Sure enough, the Conservatives won an overall majority of fifty-eight. But the Eden administration’s political honeymoon turned out to be a short one. It quickly appeared that Rab Butler’s pre-election budget had been too loose, and there followed a much tighter emergency budget in October, which badly damaged Butler’s reputation – he was replaced as Chancellor by Harold Macmillan six months later – and seriously dented the Government’s. But it was, of course, to be foreign affairs which would be Eden’s real undoing.

The background to the Suez crisis of July to November 1956 has been much discussed. The general feeling, at least among Conservatives, was that Britain was a great power which should not be pushed around by Nasser’s Egypt and that the latter needed to be taught a lesson, not least pour encourager les autres. Many of the details, for example the degree of collusion between Britain and France on the one hand and Israel on the other, were not available to the wider public at the time. To us, therefore, it appeared almost incomprehensible that first Anthony Nutting and then my old friend Edward Boyle should resign from the Government in protest at the intervention. Now their actions are more understandable, though even all these years later I could not endorse them.

Politically, the failure of the Suez operation came as a body blow. Although it took many years for the full picture to emerge, it was immediately clear that the Government had been incompetent, and that its incompetence had been exposed in the most humiliating fashion. For a Conservative Government – particularly one led by someone whose reputation was founded on the conduct of foreign affairs – the outcome was particularly damaging. There was a mood of dismay bordering on despair among Conservative supporters. Denis’s reaction, as an ex-officer in the Royal Artillery, was sharpened by anger that our troops had been let down when the operation was halted close to completion. As he said to me: ‘You never announce a cease-fire when your troops are out on patrol.’ I would remember this: politicians must never take decisions in war without full consideration of what they mean to our forces on the ground.

We also blamed harshly the conduct of the United States, and the fact that anti-Americanism lingered on in some generally right-wing circles when I was Prime Minister must be in part attributed to this. I too felt that we had been let down by our traditional ally – though at the time, of course, I did not realize that Eisenhower felt equally let down by the Anglo-French decision to launch military operations on the eve of a Presidential election in which he was running on a peace ticket. But in any case I also felt that the ‘special relationship’ with our transatlantic cousins had foundations too solid to be eroded by even such a crisis as Suez. Some people argued that Suez demonstrated that the Americans were so hostile to Britain’s imperial role, and were now so much a superpower that they could not be trusted and that closer European integration was the only answer. But there was an alternative – and quite contrary – conclusion. This was that British foreign policy could not long be pursued without ensuring for it the support of the United States. Indeed, in retrospect I can see that Suez was an unintended catalyst in the peaceful and necessary transfer of power from Britain to America as the ultimate upholder of western interests and the liberal international economic system.

After the fiasco of Suez it was clear that Anthony Eden could not remain as Prime Minister. He fell ill during the crisis and resigned in January 1957. There was much speculation in the circles in which I moved as to who would succeed – in those days, of course, Conservative Leaders ‘emerged’ rather than being elected. My Conservative friends in Chambers were convinced that Rab Butler would never be summoned by the Queen because he was too left wing. By contrast, the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time of Suez, Harold Macmillan, was considered to be the right-wing candidate. All of which shows how little we knew of the past and present convictions of both men – particularly the brilliant, elusive figure who was shortly to become Prime Minister.

Harold Macmillan had the strengths and weaknesses of the consummate politician. He cultivated a languorous and almost antediluvian style which was not – and was not intended to be – sufficiently convincing to conceal the shrewdness behind it. He was a man of masks. It was impossible to tell, for instance, that behind the cynical Edwardian façade was one of the most deeply religious souls in politics.

Harold Macmillan’s great and lasting achievement was to repair the relationship with the United States. This was the essential condition for Britain to restore her reputation and standing. Unfortunately, he was unable to repair the damage inflicted by Suez on the morale of the British political class – a veritable ‘Suez syndrome’. They went from believing that Britain could do anything to an almost neurotic belief that Britain could do nothing. This was always a grotesque exaggeration. At that time we were a middle-ranking diplomatic power after America and the Soviet Union, a nuclear power, a leading member of NATO, a permanent member of the UN Security Council and the centre of a great Commonwealth.

Macmillan’s impact on domestic affairs was mixed. Under his leadership there was the 1957 decontrol of private sector rents – which greatly reduced the scope of the rent control that had existed in one form or another since 1915 – a necessary, though far from popular move. Generally, however, Macmillan’s leadership edged the Party in the direction of state intervention, a trend which would become much more marked after 1959.

Even at the time some developments made me uneasy. When Peter Thorneycroft, Enoch Powell and Nigel Birch – Macmillan’s entire Treasury team – resigned over a £50 million increase in public expenditure in January 1958, Macmillan talked wittily of ‘little local difficulties’. I felt in no position to judge the rights and wrongs of the dispute itself. But the husbanding of public money did not strike me as an ignoble cause over which to resign. The first steps away from the path of financial rectitude always make its final abandonment that much easier. And that abandonment brings its own adverse consequences. Such was the case in the years that followed.

It was not until the late summer of 1958 that the Conservatives caught up with Labour in the opinion polls. By the time of the 1959 general election the two main parties were unashamedly competing to appeal to the nation’s desire for material self-advancement. The Conservative manifesto bluntly stated: ‘Life’s better with the Conservatives, don’t let Labour ruin it.’ It went on to promise a doubling of the British standard of living in a generation. As for Labour, a few days into the campaign the Party Leader Hugh Gaitskell promised that there would be no rise in income tax in spite of all the extra spending Labour planned – even in that political climate of optimism, a fatally incredible pledge.

Well before this I myself had re-entered the fray. In February 1956 I wrote to Donald Kaberry, the Party Vice-Chairman in charge of candidates:

For some time now I have been feeling the temptation to return to active politics. I had intended, when I was called to the Bar, to concentrate entirely on legal work but a little experience at the Revenue Bar, and in Company matters, far from turning my attention from politics has served to draw my attention more closely to the body which is responsible for the legislation about which I have come to hold strong views.

I went to see Donald Kaberry the following month. There was no problem in my being put back on the list of candidates – this time to be considered for safe, Conservative-held seats only. I was all the more delighted because I found in Donald Kaberry a constant and dependable source of wise advice and friendship – no small thing for an aspiring candidate.

I was less fortunate in the reception I received from Selection Committees. It had begun at Orpington in 1954. It was the same at Beckenham, Hemel Hempstead and then Maidstone in 1957 and 1958. I would be short-listed, would make what was generally acknowledged to be a good speech – and then the questions, most of them having the same purpose, would begin. With my family commitments, would I have time enough for the constituency? Did I realize how much being a Member of Parliament would keep me away from home? And sometimes more bluntly still: did I really think that I could fulfil my duties as a mother with young children to look after and as an MP?

I felt that Selection Committees had every right to ask me these questions. I explained our family circumstances and that I already had the help of a first-class nanny. I also used to describe how I had found it possible to be a professional woman and a mother by organizing my time properly. What I resented, however, was that beneath some of the criticism I detected a feeling that the House of Commons was not really the right place for a woman anyway. Perhaps some of the men at Selection Committees entertained this prejudice, but I found then and later that it was the women who came nearest to expressing it openly.

I was hurt and disappointed by these experiences. They were, after all, an attack on me not just as a candidate but as a wife and mother. But I refused to be put off by them. I was confident that I had something to offer in politics. I knew that many others who had crossed my political path very much wanted me to get into the House. And most important of all, Denis never had any doubts. He was always there to comfort and support me.

In April 1958 I had another long talk with Donald Kaberry and I spoke frankly about the difficulties I had faced as a woman with the Selection Committees. Unfortunately, this is not one of the topics on which even the wisest male friend can give very useful counsel. But Donald Kaberry did give me advice on what to wear on these sensitive occasions – something smart but not showy. In fact, looking me up and down he said he thought the black coat dress with brown trim which I was wearing would be just fine. His sartorial judgement would soon be put to the test. For I now entered my name for – and in July was called to interview at – the safe Conservative seat of Finchley, North London, whose MP was retiring.

I was one of a ‘long list’ of some 150 applicants, which contained a number of my future colleagues in the House. I was also one of those called for preliminary interview by the Constituency Selection Committee. I could tell that I had a good deal of support, but being the most popular person on these occasions can sometimes be less important than being the least unpopular person. If, as the weaker candidates are eliminated, all their support goes to your opponent it is quite possible to fall at the last fence – and we were barely out of the paddock.

It was arranged that the final four of us – three men and myself – should go before the Executive Council of the Association and I was pretty sure that I could expect some fierce opposition; it would be a fight.

I prepared myself as best I could. I felt reasonably confident that I knew the constituency. I had no doubt that I could cope with even quite abstruse questions of economic or foreign policy, for I had voraciously read the newspapers and all the briefing I could obtain. I prepared my speech until it was word perfect, and I had mastered the technique of talking without notes. Equally important was that I should put myself in the right state of mind – confident but not too confident. And I wore the black coat dress. I saw no harm, either, in courting the fates: so I wore not just my lucky pearls but also a lucky brooch which had been given to me by my Conservative friends in Dartford.

There was, however, one piece of thoroughly bad luck. This was that on the date of the meeting – Monday 14 July – it was quite impossible for Denis to come with me. Indeed, so quick was the whole selection process that he knew nothing whatever about it. Every year he would go away on a foreign sales tour for a month or so, and at this point his whereabouts were only ‘somewhere in Africa’. By contrast, the other candidates were accompanied by their spouses. So as I entered the packed meeting on that warm July evening I felt very much alone.

But as soon as I was on my feet the inhibitions fell away. As always, I quickly became too taken up with the thrust of my argument to worry too much about what other people were thinking. The applause when I sat down seemed warm and genuine. It was at questions that the trouble began.

Could a mother with young children really effectively represent Finchley? What about the strains on my family life? I gave my usual answers, and as usual too a section of the audience was determinedly unconvinced. And doubtless it was easier for them because poor Denis was absent. I rejoined the other candidates and their wives, where the tension was only relieved by that over-polite inconsequential small talk which such occasions always seem to generate. Once the last of us had performed, it seemed an endless wait until one of the officers came through to tell us the result. And when he did, it was to me that he spoke. There was no time to feel relief, pleasure or even exhaustion, because it was now necessary to return to receive the congratulations of the Executive.

It was only afterwards that I knew the precise result. The first round of voting gave me thirty-five votes as against thirty-four for my nearest rival. On the second round, when the two other candidates had dropped out, I had forty-six against his forty-three. It was then expected that, for form’s sake and to show that there was no ill feeling, the Executive should unanimously vote to select me as their candidate. Unfortunately, some of those who opposed my candidature had no such intentions. So I inherited an Association which I would have to unite behind me, and this would mean winning over people who had not disguised their disapproval.

But that was for tomorrow. First I must break the good news to my family back in Grantham. Denis was entirely incommunicado, blissfully unaware of what I had been through at Finchley. I had written him a letter some time before about the prospects, but he never received it. A couple of days later he was on his way from Johannesburg to Lagos via Kano in northern Nigeria. On changing planes he picked up a copy of the London Evening Standard which someone had left behind, and as he leafed through it he discovered the astonishing news that his wife had been selected for the safe seat of Finchley. I always seemed to be giving him surprises.

My first opportunity to impress myself on the Finchley Association as a whole was at the Adoption Meeting early the following month. This time I again appeared in a plain black outfit with a small black hat. I received what I afterwards learned was an almost embarrassingly glowing introduction from Bertie Blatch, the constituency chairman, who was to be a great patron and protector. (It was an added advantage then and later that Bertie owned the most important local newspaper, the Finchley Press.) As I entered the hall, I was met with warm applause. I used the occasion to speak at some length about both international and domestic affairs. I pulled out every stop. I knew that though I was the only duly selected candidate, this adoption meeting was not, as it should have been, a mere formality. There was still some die-hard opposition to my candidature, centred on one woman and her little coterie, who were trying to have the contest re-run. I was determined to overcome this. There were no problems in dealing with the three questions from the body of the hall. As Conservatives do on such occasions, they gave me a terrific reception. But at the end – and contrary to the newspaper report of the occasion – a few of those present refused to vote for my adoption, which was overwhelming but not (that magic word) ‘unanimous’. I left the meeting knowing that I had secured my candidature and confident of the loyalty of the great majority of the Association, but aware too that some were still determined to make life as difficult as possible.

I went as far as to write to Ted Heath, then Chief Whip, about the problems I was having. Partly as a result of his assistance, and partly because I used my own personal contacts, I managed to attract a distinguished field of speakers to come and speak on my behalf between my adoption and election day. Iain Macleod, Keith Joseph, Peter Thorneycroft and John Boyd-Carpenter – all people around whom my future political life would soon revolve – were among them. Denis’s belated but extremely welcome arrival on the scene also helped in a rather different way. Bertie Blatch gave me constant and unstinting support.

Finchley had been run with a degree of gentlemanly disengagement that was neither my style nor warranted by political realities. I intended to work and then campaign as if Finchley were a marginal seat, and I hoped and expected that others would follow my lead. From now on I was in the constituency two or three times a week and regularly went out canvassing in each of the wards, returning afterwards to get to know the Party activists over a drink in the local pub or someone’s house.

By the time I arrived as candidate, there was a good deal of concern that the Liberals in Finchley were becoming strongly entrenched. They were always excellent campaigners, particularly effective in local government elections. A few years before, there had been a famous local scandal over the barring of Jews from membership of Finchley Golf Club, in which a number of local Conservatives had been involved: the Liberals never missed an opportunity to remind people of it. I simply did not understand anti-semitism myself, and I was upset that the Party should have been tainted by it. I also thought that the potential Conservative vote was not being fully mobilized because of this. So I set out to make it absolutely clear that we wanted new members, especially Jewish Conservatives, in our branch organizations. Though I did not know it at the time, I was subsequently to find some of my closest political friends and associates among Jews. What was clear was that the potential Conservative vote was not being fully exploited, and that however many feathers might be ruffled in the process it was vital to strengthen our branch organization. I also put a good deal of effort into strengthening the Young Conservative organization in the constituency: I was sure that it was by attracting energetic young people that we could most surely resist the challenge of activist Liberals. By the time the election was called in September 1959 the constituency organization was looking in better shape, and I had begun to feel very much at home.

My first general election polling day in Finchley in October 1959 was very much to set the pattern for the nine such polling days which would succeed it. Soon after the opening of the poll I would vote in my own home constituency – Orpington in 1959, Chelsea and Westminster in later elections – and then drive up to Finchley with Denis. I visited each of the polling stations and our committee rooms, breaking for lunch with Bertie Blatch and others in a hotel. There I rigorously paid just for my own food and drink, to avoid the accusation of ‘treating’ electors, terror of which is instilled by Conservative Central Office into all our candidates. From 5 o’clock I carefully avoided visiting committee rooms, which should all be sending out workers to summon our supporters to the polls, just dropping into a polling station or two to show the flag. Then at close of poll Denis and I went to the Blatches’ for something to eat, visited the constituency offices to catch the latest largely anecdotal news, and finally attended the count – on this occasion at Christ’s College, though later all nine constituency counts would be held at Barnet Town Hall.

At the school, I found that each of the candidates had been allocated a room where he or she with a select band of supporters could get something to eat and drink and where we had access to that miracle of modern political life – a television. The 1959 campaign had, in fact, been the first in which television played a serious part. I divided my time between watching the growing piles of ballot papers, candidate by candidate, on the long tables in the body of the hall, and slipping back to my room to catch the equally satisfactory results coming in across the country as a whole.

At about 12.30 a.m. I was told that the Finchley results were shortly to be announced, and was asked to join the Electoral Returning Officer with the other candidates on the platform. Perhaps some people in a safe seat when the Tories were on course for a national victory would have been confident or even complacent. Not me. Throughout my time in politics, whether from some sixth sense or perhaps – who knows? – from mere superstition, I have associated such attitudes with imminent disaster. So I stood by the side of Denis with a fixed smile and tried not to look as I felt.

The Returning Officer began: ‘Deakins, Eric Petro: thirteen thousand, four hundred and thirty-seven.’ (Labour cheers.) ‘Spence, Henry Ivan: twelve thousand, seven hundred and one.’ (Liberal cheers.) And finally we reached: ‘Thatcher, Margaret Hilda: twenty-nine thousand, six hundred and ninety-seven.’ I was home and dry – and with a majority of 16,260, almost 3,500 more than my predecessor. The cheers rose. I made my short speech of acceptance, thanked all my splendid helpers, received a warm hug from Denis and walked down from the platform – the elected Member for Finchley.

In an unguarded moment, shortly after I had been selected for Finchley, I had told the twins that once I became an MP they could have tea on the terrace of the House of Commons. From then on the plaintive request had been: ‘Aren’t you there yet, Mummy? It’s taking a long time.’ I had known the feeling. It had seemed so very long for me too. But I now knew that within weeks I would take my seat on the green leather benches of the House of Commons.

It was the first step.

* A.V. Dicey, jurist (1835–1922).