TIMES PAST THE HIGHS AND LOWS OF IRON LADY’S VISITS TO SCOTLAND
IT IS 30 years to the day since Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher left Downing Street for good. Britain’s first female Prime Minister made her last tearful speech as the leader of the country from the doorstep of Number 10.
Fifteen years earlier, she had almost been crushed in the crowds which turned out to greet her in Edinburgh and Glasgow on a oneday visit to Scotland.
In Glasgow, 1000 people surrounded her when she took part in a walkabout in George Square with the city’s Lord Provost. In Edinburgh, she was almost swamped when 3000 fans rushed ‘ to shake her hand or even just to touch her.’
Under the headline ‘ Crowds Mob Maggie’ the Evening Times reported: “Mrs Margaret Thatcher came close to being crushed during amazing scenes in Edinburgh today as 3000 people swarmed round her during a walkabout.
“A police cordon and party aides gathered round her at the St James shopping centre.
“Cheers and shouts of support greeted the new Tory leader as police fought to clear a way through the crowd that pressed closer and closer with every step.”
One of her colleagues, Shadow
Secretary of State for Scotland Mr Alick Buchanan- Smith, said he had been bruised down one side of his body in the crush.
“I have never known anything like it,” he told the Evening Times reporter. “For one moment I was fearful of the cordon not holding.”
Our sister newspaper The Herald, described Mrs Thatcher’s presence in Scotland, her first visit since she replaced Ted Heath as leader.
“She’s a formidable lass, this Maggie, compact, efficient,” wrote William Hunter. “She slips in and out of cars as if on ball- bearings.
“She manacles her hands together when she speaks. Totally neat. Condemning waffle in others ( especially reporters), she herself uses waffle like a deadening sledgehammer. She never answered one question simply all day.”
The Herald’s leader conceded she had a novelty value, creating “a genuine excitement in a way that few politicians can do nowadays.”
In Glasgow, Mrs Thatcher spoke at a Tory rally in the City Halls, assuring her faithful supporters this would be the first of many visits she would make to Scotland, “because it is crucial for Britain that the party’s fortunes should
prosper and advance in Britain as a whole.”
Scotland, she said, was particularly important. The party’s number of Scottish MPs had been declining sharply since 1955.
“Unless we can turn the tide it will be difficult, if not impossible, to secure the return of a Conservative Government in Westminster with a working majority,” she said, adding that the establishment of a Scottish assembly had to be a priority within the framework of preserving the unity of the UK.
In September 1981, Mrs Thatcher had a less happy visit to Renfrew. To coincide, the Evening Times launched its Scotland on the Dole campaign.
“Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher arrives in Scotland tomorrow for a short visit,” said the headline. “Today the Evening Times examines how unemployment has soared in Scotland since she came to power.” In Renfrew, outside the Howden factory, she was greeted by 2000 demonstrators, claimed the newspaper, some of whom hurled eggs at her.
In a lighter moment, she turned the tables on massed photographers and took a picture of them.
In January 1983, Mrs Thatcher was back in the city, to visit the Evening Times and Herald offices on Albion Street to help mark the paper’s bicentenary.
In a light- hearted speech at the Holiday Inn, she pointed out the first editor had been jailed for sedition.
“I am sure the present editor will escape the fate of the first one”, she said, adding menacingly: “but I shall be taking a particularly close look at the leader column just in case.”