Thoughts on Thatcher
Iwas on a post-Easter break in Tunisia when The Big Story of the death of Baroness Thatcher broke and it was interesting to see how it was presented there. Front page news and headlines – as you would expect. I watched SKY News too and there it was wall to wall coverage. Lots of pre-prepared pieces played over and over again with live comments from the great and the good – those who adored her and those who were her critics. There were very moving tributes from people who had worked with her or for her or known her many years ago. It was only when I got home that I saw the bilious outpouring of unadulterated hatred. I couldn’t believe my eyes that people could be so callous. Did no-one consider the feelings of her children and grandchildren? Pictures of celebrations and champagne and posters – the latter courtesy of The Socialist Worker – and endless choruses of Ding Dong The Witch is Dead. A lot of the people ‘celebrating’ weren’t even born when she was in office.
I met Mrs Thatcher, as she was then, when she was my MP – in fact, her children went to my church school. The church I attended at that time put on a pageant in 1982 celebrating the church’s hundredth birthday and the history of Christianity in the British Isles – a dramatic affair which began in the Synagogue next to the church and then progressed through the church school and finally into the church itself. My job was to guide Mrs T around explaining to her what was going on in each setting. We entered one room where Hilda of Whitby was being dramatized. When I told her what was happening she replied that this must have been around the 600’s at the time of the Synod of Whitby. I was impressed! I was impressed too when she encountered a group of small schoolchildren acting out in the cold playground. She gathered them together and encouraged them to try and keep warm. Just like any grandmother would – and there wasn’t a cameraman in sight.
I also met her at a Party Conference in Bournemouth via her PR man Harvey Thomas. He, of course, was the man whose image so many of us woke up to on the morning of October 12th 1984 being rescued from the rubble of the Brighton bombing of the Grand Hotel. He was plunged through several floors and miraculously survived. His wife Marlies was 9 months pregnant at the time, (his daughter Leah was born 6 days later). Mrs Thatcher wrote to them saying “it would have been very difficult to get through last week without a strong faith”. She made headlines when in 1988 she gave what became known as The Sermon on the Mound – (the Mound being the artificial hill in Edinburgh) - an address to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. In it she offered a theological justification for her ideas on capitalism and the market economy. She claimed that ‘Christianity is about spiritu- al redemption, not social reform’. She also said that ‘choice’ played a significant part in her reforms and that choice was also Christian. Christ chose to lay down his life and that all individuals have the God-given right to choose between good and evil. She justified her belief in individual salvation by quoting from the hymn I Vow to Thee My Country – ‘and soul by soul and silently her shining bounds increase’ – not group by group, or party by party, or even church by church – but soul by soul – and each one counts.
Although famous for her ‘there’s no such thing as society’ quote in 1987– let’s remind ourselves of what she actually said. “I think we’ve been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it’s the government’s job to cope with it. ‘I have a problem, I’ll get a grant.’ ‘I’m homeless, the government must house me.’ They’re casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It’s our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There’s no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation.” As Charles Moore pointed out in the Daily Telegraph – ‘Certain New Testament parables illustrated, for her, how this worked. The Good Samaritan would have been no use without money. And in the Parable of the Talents, I wonder whether the successful servant who turned his five talents into 10 would have bothered to do so if he had been taxed at 83 per cent [the top rate in the late 1970s] on his gain. She did not mean society could go hang. Quite the opposite: she wanted to return responsibility for the health of society to every single citizen.’
I met her on a few other occasions; a charity ball, a lunch and a Christmas Urban Myths Bernard L Brown, a health care professional in America once worked in a hospital where a patient knocked over a cup of water, which spilled on the floor beside the patient’s bed. The patient was afraid he might slip on the water if he got out of the bed, so he asked an auxiliary nurse to mop it up. The patient didn’t know it, but the hospital policy said that small spills were the responsibility of the auxiliaries while large spills were to be mopped up by the cleaning staff.
The auxiliary decided the spill was a large one and she called the cleaning department. A cleaner arrived and declared the spill a small one. An argument followed.
“It’s not my responsibility,” said the auxiliary, “because it’s a large puddle.” The cleaner did not agree. “Well, it’s not mine,” she said, “the puddle is too small.”
The exasperated patient listened for a time, then took a pitcher of water from his night table and poured the whole thing on the floor. “Is that a big enough puddle now for you two to decide?” he asked. It was, and that was the end of the argument. A young woman w as preparing a ham dinner . After she cut off the end of the ham, she placed it in a pan for baking.
Her friend asked her: “Why did you cut off the end of the ham?”
She replied: “I really don’t know, but my mother always did it, so I thought you were supposed to.”
Later, when she was talking to her mother, she asked why she cut off the end of the ham before baking it. Her mother replied: “I r eally don’t know, but that’s the way my mum always did it.”
A few weeks later while visiting her grandmother, the young woman asked: “Grandma, why is it that you cut of f the end of the a ham before you bake it?”
Her grandmother replied: “Well, dear, it would never fit into my baking pan.” Bazaar, and found her to be very friendly, but the best time was at No 10 itself when she and Denis hosted a small reception. She was an excellent hostess and she was always very friendly to me. Yes, she was divisive, but you knew where you were with her. Her yes was yes and her no was no. My Mum used to say that if you couldn’t think of anything good to say about someone, then it was best to say nothing – especially once they were dead. Several of my Facebook friends who disagreed totally with her policies posted this quote mistakenly attributed to Martin Luther King Jr – who actually said something very similar - ‘I will mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that”.
I wasn’t invited to the funeral at St Paul’s but I was invited to the Service of Thanksgiving for the life of Jean Wilson at All Souls Church, Langham Place. Jean was an amazing lady! She worked with Billy Graham from his first visit to London in the 1950’s and led the London headquarters for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. For many years, Jean was also the international Treasurer and UK Director of African Enterprise – the ‘African Mission’. Many African Christian Leaders knew her as the ‘Queen Jean’. AE Founder Michael Cassidy said ‘She was a ‘vintage woman of God, loved and admired by so many all over the world’. I met her via her work for Samaritan’s Purse and mourn her passing. Gigi Graham – daughter of Billy – flew over from the States specially to be at the service. She quoted from Proverbs 31 which describes an excellent woman and Revd Preb Richard Bewes likened her to Deborah – a lady of ‘an iron will’. Not ‘the iron lady’ but another woman admired by the many all over the world for her dedication and passion.