Margaret Thatcher: a woman at No 10 with a style all her own The outgoing prime minister's principal private secretary, Kenneth Stowe, who automatically continued to do the same job for the new prime minister, was waiting for her at the Palace as she came down the steps after her audience. He advised her to sit immediately behind the driver in the official car, rather than, as is more usual, on the other side of the back seats. This was to ensure that she could get out of the car at the door of 10 Downing Street without the waiting press and photographers seeing her legs first. When the Thatchers arrived, to cheers from the huge crowd which, in those pre-security days, was allowed into Downing Street, a journalist asked her how she felt. Mrs Thatcher said that she was "very excited, very aware of the responsibilities." Emphasising her idea of herself as a woman of conviction, she promised that she would "strive unceasingly to try to fulfil the trust and confidence that the British people have placed in me and the things in which I believe." Outside Downing Street, May 4 1979 (PA) Then she quoted "some words of St Francis of Assisi which I think are really just particularly apt at the moment. Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope."" These words (not, in fact, by St Francis, but by a nineteenth-century follower) had been supplied to her, at the very last minute, and to the chagrin of her private office, by her speech writer, the playwright Ronald Millar. Even at the time, they seemed a little pious. Michael Dobbs [then one of her advisers, later to write House of Cards], who was listening from the hall of No 10, said: "I thought she'd gone mad." Her choice reflected the fact that it was the divisions of the nation, exposed by the Winter of Discontent, which caused the greatest public anguish. The new prime minister had to address them. Although she knew a fight might come, she was not spoiling for one. When she pushed through the door of No 10, she was greeted, as is customary, by the assembled staff, roughly 70 strong. Among the tiny group of party men accompanying her, expecting to take up political appointments, was Dobbs. Looking at the ranks of career civil servants in the hall, he decided that "it was an uneven contest." The introductions completed, Stowe led Mrs Thatcher to the Cabinet Room, where all the briefs, which he had compiled in his adjacent office, awaited. At the door, she turned to him and asked: "Ken, what do I do now?" "You might want to speak to John Hunt [the Cabinet Secretary], prime minister," said Stowe. You've got to form an administration. This little exchange was heartening for Stowe and his colleagues in the private office, and appeared to confirm Dobbs's fears. The officials were relieved to find her turning to them for help. Mrs Thatcher had a temperamental and ideological suspicion of the Civil Service; her time as education secretary had made her angry about how officialdom could frustrate what she believed needed doing. In opposition, she had complained of the difficulty in "finding enough colleagues with the character and ability to stand up to the Civil Service," and claimed that she had met with success only "by nearly killing herself to get on top of 3,000 [officials] at DES." Many expected that she would make radical changes in the machinery of government. Besides, the plots and dramas of the Lib-Lab pact (the agreement by which, between March 1977 and September 1978, the Labour government was sustained by Liberal Party support), which had involved a good deal of monkeying with the business of the House of Commons, had made bad blood between government and opposition. Stowe, as the official charged with operating the pact, half expected to be punished by Mrs Thatcher when she arrived. In his first meeting with her the previous year, to brief her on the Civil List (the system of parliamentary payments to support the cost of the monarchy), he thought that he had "never encountered someone before who was such a bad listener," and yet when he sat in on the opposition front-bench speech on the subject shortly afterwards in the House of Commons, "my jaw dropped as I heard my briefing coming back ... She'd taken it all in. He knew she was formidable, and he did not expect her to be sympathetic. At lunchtime on the day of the handover of power, Callaghan had collected all his closest Downing Street assistants, including the private secretaries, for a modest and melancholy farewell meal of cottage pie before going to take leave of the Queen. The civil servants present had fully expected to be the victims of the fierce new broom which would begin sweeping that afternoon. That night, however, they found themselves sitting at a scratch supper in the state dining room with the new prime minister, huddled at the end of the table by the fireplace eating cottage pie for the second time in a day. At the hairdresser during the battle to become Tory leader, 1975 (Rex/James Gray/Associated Newspapers) Mrs Thatcher had no plans to get rid of anyone. In fact, in this area, she had almost no plans at all. To the constant surprise and frustration of many advisers and supporters who were on what Denis called the "Long March" with her, Mrs Thatcher never showed much interest in how to organise matters and control appointments to achieve the results she sought. No one in her office was in charge of coordinating the work of government. She did not believe that the bureaucracy should be reshaped from top to bottom, but rather that it should be regalvanized. "It was not," according to Richard Ryder, who ran her private office, "the Maoists arriving at No 10." Although she disliked officials as a class, she loved individual examples of the breed and depended very heavily on them. The private office she inherited was touched and "astonished that she accepted us without any question," Tim Lankester, her first economic private secretary, recalled. Nick Sanders, another private secretary inherited from the Labour administration, recalled that Callaghan, though always courteous, had seemed to hold back from his officials what he was really thinking. Mrs Thatcher, on the other hand, "told us exactly what she thought." John Hoskyns, who was the first head of her policy unit and therefore her leading non-career civil servant, remarked on "a strange contradiction: her instinct when she's scared is to fight. But she was quite in awe of Whitehall mandarins. But it may not have been a contradiction at all: she understood the importance of the men who made the machine work, and would always support them so long as they made it work for her. After a few months of governing, she looked up from her desk at Clive Whitmore, who had replaced Stowe as her principal private secretary in June, and said: "Clive, I'd be able to run this government much better if I didn't have ministers, only permanent secretaries." Mrs Thatcher's chief method of exerting her will over the machine was not institutional but personal. She used every remark, every memo, every meeting as an opportunity to challenge existing habits, criticise any sign of ignorance, confusion or waste and preach incessantly the main aims of her administration. Determined to work harder and know more than any other minister, she used the ritual of Prime Ministers Questions in Parliament every Tuesday and Thursday that the House was sitting as the means of familiarising herself with the work of all departments. She would be briefed early in the morning about what was likely to be asked (though the device of the "open question" meant that she could never know exactly), and then, over a light lunch which everyone ate holding plates on their knees, would rehearse possible answers with Nick Sanders, the relevant private secretary, Ian Gow, her parliamentary private secretary, and others. She did very well out of the combination of the parliamentary political joust and the twice-weekly cramming of facts. Her strongest form of self-criticism, she herself recalled in old age, was provoked "whenever I had not prepared thoroughly enough for something." Her other method of control, used much more rarely, was to make visitations to different departments to see for herself what they were up to. These were memorably demanding occasions. In the case of the Department of Employment, with which, as the department closest to the trade unions, she was naturally out of sympathy, the outing was particularly painful for her hosts. Due to some confusion at the front desk, Mrs Thatcher went upstairs without being greeted by Jim Prior, the employment secretary, and his junior ministers, who came down in one lift just after she had gone up in another. Prior, red-faced at the best of times, went purple in his race to catch up with her. When his panting party arrived, he found the prime minister already in full flood. Such visits also had a very important general effect. They meant that Mrs Thatcher was feared. From first to last, for 11 and a half years, she sent tremors through the whole of Whitehall. Heseltine: 'That's the mistake of promoting someone too early...' The day after she became Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher had to appoint her first Cabinet, assisted by the Chief Whip, Michael Jopling. Most of her appointments were expected - notably Sir Geoffrey Howe as Chancellor of the Exchequer, her deputy Willie Whitelaw as Home Secretary, and Lord Carrington as Foreign Secretary. Only one man presented a problem. The process of appointment proceeded efficiently on the morning of Saturday May 5. The only hitch came when Mrs Thatcher offered Michael Heseltine the energy portfolio. "No," he said, "I've been rehearsing environment for three years. That's what I want to do. Mrs Thatcher's handwritten list of her planned appointments shows that she had intended to offer environment to the Labour defector Reg Prentice (who had crossed to the Tories in 1977), but she gave in on the spot, fobbing Prentice off with a post outside the Cabinet. After Heseltine had left, she said to Michael Pattison, her private secretary, who had been present at the interview: "I don't like one-to-one confrontations with Michael." Even in opposition, she had felt wary about his ambition. One day, her protection officer, Barry Strevens, had told her that David Owen, as foreign secretary, had been so demanding in his dealings with staff that he had got through eight drivers and two personal protection teams. Mrs Thatcher's comment was: "That's the mistake of promoting someone too early. We won't make the same mistake with Michael Heseltine. But, now that the time had come, Heseltine had forced her to do what she had wished to avoid. From the start, he proved both an awkward and a formidable customer. Michael Heseltine (L), an "awkward and formidable customer (PA) Coded hair appointments and a night-time furniture raid The first woman prime minister had needs previously unknown in Downing Street. Frequent hairdressing was required and, once television cameras were introduced to the House of Commons in 1989, these appointments became twice weekly. As had happened when Mrs Thatcher was education secretary, the private office was uneasy about putting the word "hairdresser" into the diary on the grounds that it detracted from the dignity of the office. It asked Caroline Stephens, her diary secretary, how to deal with this self-invented problem. After discussion, the phrase "Carmen rollers" was agreed as a sort of code. Mrs Thatcher's clothes were looked after, in the early days, chiefly by Lady (Guinevere) Tilney, wife of Sir John, who had befriended Margaret Thatcher when they were both looking for parliamentary seats in the late 1940s. Lady Tilney was known, slightly mockingly, as "the Mistress of the Robes," and was also responsible for organising Downing Street receptions. Crawfie - Cynthia Crawford - later succeeded to the informal title. With Lady Tilney, who looked after Mrs Thatcher's clothes before Snythia Crawford (PA) Strict government rules prevented the acceptance of personal presents of any substantial value, but Mrs Thatcher was allowed to take such gifts on loan. She wore British clothes on these terms, and also the many jewels which Arab potentates tended to press upon her. With her seamstress's love of getting detail right and her wartime generation's devotion to "make do and mend," she combined a very smart appearance with economy. Care was taken to record which dress she wore at which occasion, and dresses were given nicknames for easy recognition. One with red and white circles on it, for example, was called "Balloons." Her attitude to her appearance and that of her surroundings combined two things which were potentially in conflict - her love of propriety and economy, and her love of attractive, high-quality objects which would enhance the dignity of the premiership and the prestige of Britain. One official noted that she had "an almost Queen Mary-type" magpie desire for pretty things to decorate her official residence. One day early in her first administration, she discovered that one of the ministerial flats in Admiralty House, vacant at the time, had several good bits of government furniture. She procured the key and personally led a party of the No 10 steward, her appointments secretary and her detective to the flat. She walked round, pointing at pictures, chairs and so on, and saying "I'll have that and that." The party of burglars, carrying their loot, then returned to No 10 with the prime minister at their head. Excited, her lobes became engorged and an earring might pop off In 1979, there were no computers at all in Downing Street and Mrs Thatcher drew heavily on the services of the career secretaries and typists, traditionally known as the "Garden Room girls" because they worked in the two basement rooms that look on to the garden of No 10. They took dictation, summoned by buzzers, in which a single buzz represented the principal private secretary and more buzzes represented more junior officials, and they generally made everything work. Each night they locked the carbons and ribbons for their electric typewriters in the safe, since these would bear the impression of secrets they had typed during the day. Mrs Thatcher strongly approved of the traditional smallness of the No 10 set-up. It meant, in the words of Jane Parsons, who ran the Garden Room when the Thatchers arrived and had worked for every prime minister since Attlee and Churchill, that the whole enterprise felt like "a cosy family unit and the PM was head of the family." Some of the girls would enter No 10 through the door in the garden wall, wheeling their bicycles. A few prime ministers, notably Heath and Wilson, had been rather difficult or stand-offish about this ethos, but the Thatchers loved it. Denis, making himself available, said, "I'll do whatever you want me to do so long as it doesn't coincide with rugger." If an occasion did clash with rugby matters, Denis was not pleased. In November 1979, after Caroline Stephens, Mrs Thatcher's diary secretary, had written to him to enlist him for the state banquet for the President of Indonesia, Denis replied, reluctantly agreeing to go: "J.C. [Jesus Christ] What I do for the Party! ... The same evening I was going to probably the best Rugby Football Dinner this year ... All the chums will be there. On the campaign trial, 1979 (PA Archive/PA) Mrs Thatcher would "bounce" into the Garden Room to see what was going on. Sometimes, wandering round the various offices when she didn't have enough to do, she would riffle through in-trays and snatch up correspondence from the public. On one occasion, she came across a letter from a small florist in Wandsworth who said that his business was being undermined by the supermarket sale of flowers. From then on, she placed all her flower orders with him. On another, shortly after she had arrived at No 10, Mrs Thatcher was standing with the private secretaries, asking one of them how their telephone system worked. Suddenly she grabbed the phone as the light flashed and said, "No 10 Downing Street." On the other end was Stephen Wall, a Foreign Office official. Alerted by the half-recognised voice, he said, "Who am I speaking to?" "It's the prime minister," said Mrs Thatcher. "Oh good," said Wall, with some presence of mind, "then I'll get an answer quicker than usual." She liked to watch her own office in action. One private secretary was at his desk one day having a long argument with the Treasury on the telephone. He felt he had lost the battle, and as he put down the receiver, he said, "S---! Then he noticed that the prime minister had come in and was sitting at the desk beside him. Her eyes were shining with pleasure. Temper! Temper!" she said. At one point, thinking that the Garden Room needed better equipment, Kenneth Stowe, her PPS, ordered 32 new typewriters. One day, returning from Prime Minister's Questions, Mrs Thatcher entered the hall of No 10 to find these objects in packing cases, just delivered. "What's going on?" she cried. The situation was explained to her. After 48 hours, she issued Stowe with an order: "You can keep three." The other 29 had to go back. The Thatchers at Chequers (Central Press) The cosiness of No 10 extended to the Thatchers" life at Chequers. Mrs Thatcher liked to be driven there on Friday evenings and return, usually in time for supper, on Sunday. At Chequers, as in London, she quickly established a mixture of formality - she and Denis always dressed neatly and smartly - with friendliness towards those working for her. The duty private secretary each weekend had to stay in a cottage on the estate. A nervous Michael Pattison, on his first weekend in the role, came with his young family. To his surprise, the Thatchers invited them all to drinks before Sunday lunch. His two-year-old daughter climbed over Mrs Thatcher on the sofa and removed one of her earrings. "She met with a very soft response," he remembered. For anyone who had experienced the Heath days, such a scene was unimaginable (even allowing for the fact that Heath would not have worn earrings). Mrs Thatcher's ears were never pierced. In her generation, it was often considered gipsyish to have pierced ears. According to one of her team, if she became excited while wearing earrings, her lobes would become engorged; occasionally, under the pressure, an earring would pop off. 'I just want a massive snog': what men really thought A significant factor in Mrs Thatcher's political success was that quite large numbers of men fell for her. The Scottish genealogist Sir Iain Moncreiffe of that Ilk was the only man known to have made an indecent suggestion to her while she was prime minister, but many harboured a romantic devotion which teetered on the edge of the sexual. Sir Hector (later Lord) Laing, the chairman of United Biscuits, would send her notes which he requested be placed under her pillow. Kingsley Amis, the novelist, described Mrs Thatcher in his memoirs as "one of the best-looking women I had ever met ... The fact that it is not a sensual or sexy beauty does not make it a less sexual beauty, and that sexuality is still, I think, an underrated factor in her appeal (or repellence) . Brian Walden, the former Labour MP turned television interviewer, reported David Owen as saying to him: "The whiff of that perfume, the sweet smell of whisky. By God, Brian, she's appealing beyond belief. Alan Clark, the roguish MP and diarist, when asked by the present author about the nature of his love for Mrs Thatcher, said: "I don't want actual penetration - just a massive snog." Alan Clark (R) with fellow Cabinet member Ken Clarke (L) A snub for Gordon Reece, chief architect of victory Gordon Reece, the public relations guru who had worked for the Conservative party since the early 1970s, was instrumental in transforming Mrs Thatcher's presentational skills, including her voice. She, however, was a little slow in realising Reece's full importance. That was certainly his opinion. In 1981, she offered him the CBE. He wrote back, with icy anger: "It is my view that with the exception of yourself, no member of the Conservative Party contributed more effectively to the result of the 1979 election than I did ... Not that such services demand a knighthood ... But I respectfully suggest that that or nothing were the alternatives ... I am conscious of the honourable estate of the CBE. In the circumstances I would prefer not to accept it. Reece was eventually rewarded with a knighthood in 1986. TV's sharpest interviewer praised her media campaign Shortly after the general election victory, the former Labour MP Brian Walden, by then a television interviewer and strong Thatcher admirer, offered his own private analysis of her campaign. He said that Gordon Reece had been right in his strategy "not to expose [her] to journalism but to the cameras" because if the journalists had been more alert, they would, being mainly Leftist, have done much more to oppose her. "The editors," said Walden, "have simply not kept pace with Thatcherism. Mrs Thatcher was saying something quite different, but didn't want to be seen to be too different ... This election was about a woman who believes in inequality, passionately, who isn't Keynesian, who is not worried about dole queues. In his view, if interviewers had wanted to find the truth, they should have asked her: "Mrs Thatcher, do you believe in a more unequal society?"