JENNI MURRAY
Bill Bailey: a beacon of hope for dad dancers everywhere
SO MANy of us remember that terrible day. The absolute horror when a bomb, planted by the IRA, ripped through the Grand Hotel in Brighton during the 1984 Conservative Party Conference. It killed five people, but it also left Norman Tebbit’s wife Margaret, who died at the weekend aged 86, permanently paralysed. The abiding image of that awful morning, as we watched the emergency services rescuing people from the rubble, was seeing Tebbit, the Tories’ ultimate tough guy, being carried out on a stretcher. He was barely clothed and his f ace was white and contorted with pain.
It was a deeply upsetting thing to see, whether you agreed with his politics or not.
From that moment, we began to see a different Norman Tebbit from the one with which we’d been familiar. He continued to be represented as Mrs Thatcher’s henchman, portrayed on Spitting Image as a sinister, leather- clad bovver boy.
In private, though, we would find he was someone else entirely. He was shown to be the most loving and loyal husband and a devoted father to their three children.
After her devastating injuries, Margaret spent two years undergoing hospital treatment, and, although regaining some use of her hands and arms, spent the rest of her life in a wheelchair, later developing Lewy body dementia.
Throughout all this Norman cared for her, showing a character, which, to me, is the very best of Britishness. The couple shared a sense of stoicism and refused to spend their l i ves angry and embittered by the evil cruelty they had suffered.
It’s hard to imagine anyone now responding in such a calm and philosophical manner to true tragedy when any perceived minor offence or upset is greeted with howls of injustice.
It’s time, especially as this pandemic drags on, that the whingeing stopped and t he ‘Tebbit Way’ was rekindled.
Margaret’s view and, I suspect, Norman’s, was, ‘It’s much better to look forward than to look back. To be positive is much more fruitful. Just get on with it.’ I never met her, but I interviewed him in June 1987 in the run-up to the General Election. He was the Conservative Party Chairman; I was a presenter on Radio 4’s Today programme and only a week away from giving birth to my second child.
I was terrified at having to stand up to ‘the enforcer’ at a time of hot political debate. Into the studio he came, that familiar dour look on his face, which instantly melted into the warmest of smiles.
‘Oh my dear, you’re about to give birth. Don’t worry if it happens here, I know exactly what to do. I was there for my three you know.’
Instant change of expression as we went live. Fierce and tough for the duration of the interview.
Soft and smiling as he got up to l eave. ‘ No emergency help required,’ he grinned, ‘And the very best of luck with the new baby.’
I am sure he is heartbroken at the death of his beloved Margaret after 64 years as her faithful, dutiful, constant husband. I hope someone is looking after him, at the age of 89, as lovingly as he took care of her.