May’s Image of the Month shows Margaret Thatcher in a slightly less ferrous light than usual, taking the trouble to send a hand-written letter in reply to a question from a small boy.
Image of the Month
May 1st, 2013The Director’s Secret
April 29th, 2013The unveiling of the new Churchill £5 note, already being dubbed ‘The Winston’ by some, which was announced at Chartwell on Friday came as a huge personal relief to me. For many months I have been carrying around the secret that this was to happen, being one of a small group who were informed and consulted, and was terrified that I might inadvertently let it slip. Now the news is finally out in the open, and the overriding response from the press seems to have been not why, but why has it taken so long. In fact, as the Governor explained at the opening, this is actually fast going for the Bank, and Churchill is only the second figure from the twentieth century to find his way on to a British note, the first being the composer Elgar.
My reward for keeping my secret was to attend the unveiling ceremony at Chartwell, Churchill’s house in Kent. The Churchill family were there in strength, including Lady Soames, his daughter, who described it as a proud day for her, her family – and the country. The note will not come into circulation until 2016, and security considerations meant that I could not get a prototype for the Archives Centre, but at the lunch afterwards Lady Soames was presented with an image of the design. It depicts the famous Karsh image of Churchill, taken in 1941, alongside images of the Houses of Parliament and the Nobel Medal for Literature, thereby representing Churchill as both a politician and a writer. It also features the quotation from May 1940, “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat”. Perhaps this is the new mission statement for the British economy?
Allen Packwood
Memories of Maggie
April 19th, 2013Lady Thatcher first visited the Churchill Archives Centre, with Sir Denis, on a Sunday early in 1994. Typically, she wrote an immediate thank-you letter to our then Keeper, the historian Correlli Barnett, recording her gratitude for the archives staff “who preserve the lessons of history for us” and for seeing a display of wartime papers which recorded “Churchill’s genius” in inspiring confidence in wartime victory.
In 1997 Lady Thatcher generously donated the bulk of her personal and political papers to the Margaret Thatcher Archive Trust on behalf of the nation. Since then, the Trust has supported their cataloguing and preservation at the Centre, alongside the papers of Sir Winston.
After 1997 Lady Thatcher continued to chair and support the work of the Archive Trust and was a regular visitor to College. With her help, funding was raised for a new wing to house her papers and provide expansion space for the Archives Centre. At an early meeting to report progress on the design her eyes focused intently on me as she queried the direction of air flow movements in the extension. Of course, she had alighted on the one ambiguity in the design proposal and I had a few awkward moments under her gaze.
The extension building was eventually opened in 2002 by Lady Thatcher who reached towards the somewhat alarmed Director of the Archives, Allen Packwood, to relieve him of a large pair of scissors to cut the ceremonial ribbon. She asked him, perhaps unnecessarily, “shall I go to the left or the right?”
The Thatcher archive contains over three thousand boxes of papers, memos, photographs and correspondence. And one of the famous handbags, which I collected from her aide “Crawfie” back in 2002. It felt very odd leaving her office with such an iconic and historical artefact. The bag dates from the mid-1980s, with a helpful handwritten note from Lady Thatcher recording its provenance.
In 2006 the Centre co-curated an exhibition at Parliament which was opened by the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair. I stood beside Lady Thatcher as Mr Blair recounted how he had asked her at Question Time in 1984 about her familiarity with the famous 1944 Employment White Paper. To his horror, she had stood in Parliament and, without warning, had answered him by pulling out her own copy of the document from her handbag. The White paper, heavily annotated and headed “Margaret H. Roberts” is now safely in her archive.
We were privileged to work so closely with Lady Thatcher who was always generous with her time in talking to our donors and supporters. In 2009 we hosted a luncheon in London to mark the start of a conference examining the legacy of the cold war. The then US Ambassador to London was booked to give an opening address to start the lunch but was caught up in terrible traffic near the Embassy. Our guests were disappointed but had a very welcome 45 minutes to talk to Lady Thatcher, pay their tributes and take photographs before the Ambassador arrived. It was a reminder of her influence on the world stage, even in retirement.
This piece will be included in “Memories of Margaret Thatcher” by Iain Dale, published in early May by Biteback in hardback at £20.
Key selections from the Thatcher papers are made available online at http://www.margaretthatcher.org after release.
Andrew Riley
Baroness Thatcher and the prayer card
April 9th, 2013There has been a huge volume of media coverage of the death of Baroness Thatcher. A short interview with Andrew Riley, our Archivist of Lady Thatcher’s personal and political papers, was featured in a programme broadcast yesterday by Jon Snow of Channel 4 News, “Maggie and me”.
The interview focuses on the discovery by Andrew of a small card in the Thatcher papers which Margaret Thatcher took with her to No 10 Downing Street on winning the 1979 General Election. The card summarises the key elements of the prayer of St Francis of Assisi which she read to the watching crowds and to the world’s media, reciting “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.”
Andrew looked for the card in the Thatcher papers after seeing it mentioned in Snow’s memoir, “Shooting history”. Snow had stood behind Mrs Thatcher when she read the Prayer outside No 10. Luckily, Jon is 6 foot 5 tall and was able to see over her shoulder to help identify the card.
An obituary for Baroness Thatcher, 1993
April 9th, 2013Just this morning, I have finally opened part of a 1993 file which has been closed since I catalogued it ten years ago: Enoch Powell’s contribution to a BBC obituary programme for Margaret Thatcher.
There are no great revelations in the file, I’m afraid – it was kept closed for reasons of general confidentiality, and is very unlikely to be used by the BBC now – but it is interesting to see just how far in advance these things are planned, twenty years early in this case.
Powell greatly respected Thatcher, and they shared similar views, on the economy and Europe in particular. In describing her for this programme, he is perhaps most interesting on the Falklands, remarking that she showed a ruthlessness "not untypical of the female."
Powell goes on to say that like everyone else in government, Thatcher knew very well that Britain had been engaged in getting rid of the Falkland Islands for years, "but she saw that the moment had come … when that would not wash and, ruthlessly and absolutely, she ditched everybody who had been in any way involved in that course of action, even though she had been herself a consenting party to it." Clearly, in Powell’s mind, a great virtue in a politician.
Katharine Thomson
A Strange Week of Churchill Events (11-15 March 2013)
April 8th, 2013It began, suitably enough, as Churchill was born there, at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire. The second annual Churchill Public Speaking Competition took place on a chilly Tuesday morning in March. Coaches arrived from around the region, and one from the Lancashire border town of Barnoldswick, disgorging hordes of nervous primary and secondary children and their equally anxious teachers. Once safely inside the Orangery, and with the First Duke of Marlborough looking down on proceedings from his canvas on the wall, each team proceeded to debate a motion inspired by a Churchill quotation. The standard was very high, and you could not help but be impressed by the bravery of the primary school groups. I had my fingers crossed for the secondary team from Westcraven School in Barnoldswick, as I had spent an afternoon coaching them in January. They were brilliant, and reminded everyone that it was Oldham and Manchester that launched Sir Winston’s career, but they did not win this time.
From Oxford to Cambridge, and I drove back to Churchill College in time to attend the Commonwealth Dinner, a wonderful occasion attended by a number of High Commissioners (I am guessing that the collective noun should be “a diplomacy”). The aim was to raise awareness of Churchill College’s foundation as the Commonwealth Memorial to Sir Winston, which Lord Watson certainly did, even if he was forced to concede that Churchill would have preferred the term Empire.
Thursday took me to London to address the Franco-British Society on the subject of Churchill and France. There was much discussion of Churchill’s complex relationship with De Gaulle and his admiration for Napoleon. From there it was a short hop to the residence of the Israeli Ambassador and a reception to honour Sir Winston Churchill’s connections with the State of Israel.
It is over 48 years since Churchill’s death, but he clearly remains as active as ever.
Image of the Month
April 2nd, 2013April’s Image of the Month is a bit of a cheat, as it actually comes from another Cambridge college, but it is a slightly different and rather beautiful way of celebrating the 60th anniversary of the discovery of DNA.
The Thatcher archive (2): Sea slugs and Dame Edna
March 25th, 2013Despite looming large over much of 1982, the Falklands were not the only overseas challenge to Margaret Thatcher. Her first big visit after the Falklands War was to Japan, China and Hong Kong. The Chinese leg of the trip was particularly significant as it kicked off the long negotiation on the return of Hong Kong to China.
The archives reveal something of the vast preparation she personally undertook for the visit to the Far East, especially China. She felt obliged to examine every detail of the trip, wary of the symbolism and determined to make a powerful impression at every point.
Among the papers at Churchill are a list of clothes she was planning to wear, meeting by meeting (all the outfits were given names such as Smoky, Fuchsia and Plum Stars) and the archive also contains details of her outright refusal to lay at wreath at the Monument to Revolutionary Martyrs in Tiananmen Square, despite being advised that many Western heads of government had recently done so. She simply scrawls ‘NO’ in capped letters next to the suggestion.
She also spent an astonishing amount of time planning the British return banquet (held in the Great Hall of the People) where she oversaw cutlery arrangements and the silver table settings supplied by the Royal Navy. Ever keen to cut costs, whether in the British economy or domestically, Thatcher also waded in on a ridiculous argument about the cost of the banquet; the PM favouring the cheaper 50 Yuan option but eventually being persuaded to accept the 75 Yuan menu which contained shark’s fin and sea slugs.
She also became embroiled in a heated dispute about the possibility of serving jam sandwiches for dessert (considered a treat for foreign visitors). Meriting official discussion with the Foreign Office, Thatcher opted for a fruit salad dessert instead.
Despite the care and attention put into seemingly every aspect of the Far East trip, the archive confirms her meetings with the Chinese leadership did not run smoothly. Papers released this year relate for the first time that Communist Party Chairman Deng Xiaoping threatened to move into Hong Kong before the expiry of the lease in 1997 if there were ‘very large and serious disturbances in the next fifteen years’, even going so far as to mention HSBC by name as a potential agent of such disturbances.
Away from the seriousness of war and international political wrangling, Thatcher also spent one evening in 1982 in the company of the man behind the world’s most famous drag queen – Dame Edna Everage. While not attending in full and glittering regalia, Barry Humphries did give Mrs Thatcher a Dame Edna cooking apron for ‘informal lunches at Chequers’. The archive also contains record of an amazing literary dinner at the home of Hugh Thomas where she sat down with Larkin, Spender, Stoppard, Berlin and the like. However, records note that Iris Murdoch and John Le Carre, a grudging admirer, were unable to attend.
For Christmas 1982, the archive also reveals she was sent tapes of Yes, Minister, by the Director-General of the BBC, Alisdair Milne.
The Falklands War: the view from the archive
March 22nd, 2013The Falklands War – the conflict that defined much of Margaret Thatcher’s political career and legacy – dominates the release of her personal papers for 1982 at the Churchill Archives Centre from Monday (March 25).
Thousands of pages of her papers are being opened to the public at the Centre and made available online by the Margaret Thatcher Foundation.
Among the 40,000 pages of documents being released is Thatcher’s own copy of the note confirming the Argentine invasion of the Islands, and an emotionally-charged letter to President Reagan, eventually toned down, where she resolutely refuses American overtures to concede ground to Argentina’s military dictatorship.
A previously unseen 12-page record made by Ian Gow, Thatcher’s Parliamentary Private Secretary, following the appearance of Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington and Defence Secretary John Nott at the backbench 1922 committee, describes how the tenor of that tense exchange informed Carrington’s much-lamented decision to resign.
Thatcher’s attempts to dissuade him came to nought and the archive contains a warm letter of explanation from Carrington to Thatcher, and a touching letter by return from the Prime Minister on May 4, 1982, relating how much she and the Cabinet missed his presence.
But the papers released this year also contain evidence of less cordial relations and weak support at best from large sections of the Conservative Parliamentary Party in the build-up to war. Outside Number 10, junior ministers Tim Raison and Ken Clarke as well as Stephen Dorrell and Chris Patten were also expressing alarm; Dorrell for one saying he would only support the Task Force as a negotiating measure and advocating a withdrawal if the military Junta in Argentina refused to negotiate.
On Tuesday, April 6, four days after the Argentine invasion, Thatcher met with former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, seeking his advice on handling the looming conflict. While there was no official minute of the meeting, Thatcher’s own note survives. It references the now famous advice from Macmillan not to have Chancellor Geoffrey Howe in her War Cabinet so that money would not be an issue in making military decisions, and also details his counsel on handling war correspondents – essentially to restrict, if not censor them, as much as possible.
However, as the situation in the South Atlantic worsened in the face of Argentine intransigence and fighting began, wider Conservative and opposition support eventually began to fall in place behind the Prime Minister.
Critics remained, however, and the archive for 1982 contains sharp exchanges with Archbishop of Westminster Cardinal Hume, who challenged the morality of the Government’s action, and even Astronomer Royal Martin Ryle, who described the occupation as a ‘relatively minor event’ – a view tersely rebutted by Thatcher.
The personal sadness she felt at the loss of life during the Falklands War is reflected in the keeping of notes such as the slip of paper handed to her on June 12, relaying that HMS Glamorgan had been hit by an Exocet missile, with casualties at that point unknown. Elsewhere, the archive records instances of the Prime Minister anxiously awaiting news and reading long into the early hours of the morning as losses mounted and the British and Argentine forces traded heavy blows.
News that the Argentinians had surrendered came in a call from Fleet Command at Northwood at 9pm on Monday, June 14. The Thatcher Archives has her notes on the call, as well as her annotated copy of John Nott’s celebrated earlier statement announcing the recapture of South Georgia nearly two months earlier on April 25.
The ‘Falklands Factor’ famously led to a huge post-war boost in the Prime Minister’s own popularity rating, as well as the Government’s. She connected the conflict to domestic issues, asking in a famous speech ‘why does it need a war to bring out our qualities and assert our pride?’.
The not-so-glamorous side to the Thatcher release
March 22nd, 2013With the 1982 Thatcher material being released this week, there has been quite a bit of admin work to do on the files in the run up.
1. Labelling the files. All 90 boxes worth of them.
2. Sorting out the boxes
The files have been put into order (with the exception of a few stragglers) and shifted around so that no box is overfull when others are practically empty. And then …
3. …More labelling – the boxes this time
4. Making and adding surrogates
In some cases, Data Protection requires that certain items are redacted, or if the documents are simply of poor quality, Photoshop wizardry is used to make them legible, or copies are acquired from versions in the National Archives. The new copies are printed onto acid-free paper and slipped into place in the files.
5. Moving
The boxes are moved out of our New Wing and into the main Strong Room, ready and waiting to be used.
Francesca Alves.