Maggie and Me
As David Crosby and I stood outside the main entrance to Manchester Town Hall, we noticed a smartly-dressed woman descending the steps ahead of us. She paused at the bottom and looked hesitantly across a rain-swept Albert Square.
“That’s Margaret Thatcher,” said Dave.
“Who’s Margaret Thatcher?” I enquired.
“She’s the Tory MP for Finchley,” Dave explained. “There’s a Work and Pensions group up from Whitehall; fact-finding, so they say. There are MPs here from both sides, as well as civil servants.The government’s aiming to shake up local government services. The rumour is that there are major changes in the pipeline.”
“Cuts, you mean?”
Dave nodded.
Dave was a lecturer in Government and Politics at the Poly and was, of course, knowledgeable about such matters. We had been in the Education Department in the Town Hall on union business, or,as Dave described our mission: “We‘re going to thump a few tables and knock some heads together.” However on leaving, I felt that it was Dave and I who’d been banging our own heads: against a brick wall.We‘d got nowhere with the cagey Assistant Education Officer whom we’d interviewed, though Dave didn’t appear disheartened. Whereas I was a mere beginner as a union negotiator, Dave was a seasoned campaigner. This, he explained as we left, was merely an opening skirmish. It was 1969 and the country was at the fag-end of a beleaguered Labour government. Inflation had spiralled out of control and the unions were increasingly vociferous in their wage demands. Clearly, Harold Wilson’s strategy of beer and sandwiches with the union bosses at Number Ten had failed. Even the professional association that Dave and I represented, The Association of Teachers in Technical Institutions, had begun to think of itself as a trade union and had started to flex its puny muscles.
The rain came down heavier. Dave said he needed to get back to his college straight away. He pulled his coat over his head and ran for the bus that was pulling in across the square. My college, however, was within walking distance. As I unfurled my umbrella to depart, Margaret Thatcher hurried up the steps to seek the shelter of the entrance and stood beside me.
“What a day!” she exclaimed. “You are fortunate to have an umbrella. I suppose that people here never go out without them.”
I smiled in embarrassment. At that time, it was unusual for an unaccompanied lady to begin a conversation with a gentleman she didn’t know; but I suppose it was also unusual to be a female MP. Perhaps she considered herself to be an honorary chap. She fumbled in her handbag and fished out a plastic rain hood, which she arranged over her immaculate blonde hair before tying it firmly beneath her chin.
“I wonder if you can direct me to the city centre shops,” she said. “You see, I don’t know Manchester at all.”
“Well,” I answered, “Kendall’s is only a short distance away. It’s a department store that’s very well regarded here.”
“Oh, thank you, I might go there,” she replied, “but I really need to go to a book shop first. It’s my sister’s birthday and I want to buy her a book as a present.” She paused and regarded me, as if she had noticed me for the first time. “By the way,” she said, “do you know who I am?”
“Yes, you’re Margaret Thatcher,” I replied. It was fortunate that Dave had told me. She looked pleased.
“If you walk across Albert Square and go along John Dalton Street, on the way to Kendall’s, you’ll pass Wilshaw’s, which is a very good bookshop. I’m going that way myself,” I added, “Would you like to come with me?”
That would be very kind,” she said, “If you’re sure it’s not out of your way. May I share your umbrella?”
I crossed the broad expanse of Albert Square with some trepidation. At that time, the square was more or less open to traffic approaching in all directions. Pedestrians ventured across at their own risk. As a taxi bore down on us screeching to a halt only a yard or so from Mrs. Thatcher, she clutched my arm as I endeavoured to shield her from the rain with my umbrella. I caught the taxi driver’s eye as he mouthed a silent obscenity at us from behind his windscreen.
Once safely on the pavement, we turned into John Dalton Street. “Oh, of course, John Dalton, the celebrated chemist,” enthused Margaret. “You know, I’m ashamed to say I didn’t know he was associated with Manchester, and here they are, honouring him with a street named after him! My first degree was in Chemistry. I really should have known,” she added.
“Not just a street,” I said. “There’s a college that also bears his name. John Dalton College is part of Manchester Polytechnic now.”
“Are you a lecturer at the Polytechnic?” she asked.
“No, I work at a college of further education: It’s called St.John’s College. It’s not very far from here. We teach A-levels and commercial courses, mainly to students on day release.” We had reached the entrance to the bookshop and Margaret was eager to go in. I immediately became aware of talking too much. She was no longer responding to me, her expression had changed to one of strained patience. She had almost dismissed me from her thoughts. “Education is not my forte,” she began, “but I know that as an MP I ought to learn more about it. Thank you so much for your help, Mr?”
“Weston.”
“Mr. Weston.” She entered the shop.
At the time, I considered my brush with celebrity as no big deal. One of my colleagues had been elected as a Manchester MP in the previous election and another had been awarded a peerage for services to local government and sat in the House of Lords. In fact, I don’t remember mentioning the incident to anyone, except Dave. But within months, there was a General Election, the Tories came to power under Edward Heath and Margaret Thatcher became Secretary of State for Education and Science. She achieved immediate notoriety in that post for cancelling free milk for school-children, the first and most modest of the many cuts that fuelled her career to the top.
All that was decades ago. Since my retirement from teaching, I’ve kept in touch with David Crosby and we often reminisce over old union battles. Dave is nearly ninety now and living in a care home. On my last visit, I reminded him about my brief encounter with Mrs. Thatcher. Dave chuckled. “When you were crossing Albert Square, Ron, you should have given that woman a little nudge as you passed that taxi. You’d have changed the face of history, like that Serb who killed the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo and started World War One. Why don’t you hang about the main entrance of the Town Hall; see if some other female politician emerges who might ask you to see her across the road. Just do a better job next time.”
But now is not the time: with so many politicians frantically stabbing one another in the back and the parliamentary landscape strewn with twitching corpses, who needs an assassin?