Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography

by Charles Moore

  Her extreme busyness made others tired too. Writing to his elder daughter in January of the same year, Alfred Roberts inquired rather wistfully, ‘Have you heard from Margaret recently? She isn’t too good at correspondence. But I’m afraid it is the result of doing so much in other ways.’98 When Margaret found her flat in supposedly dangerous Pimlico, her father did a great deal to help with finding furniture and passing on the old car which he had originally bought for Muriel. He felt rather unthanked for his efforts, depending on Muriel for news about whether he had given pleasure: ‘It’s good to know she is satisfied with what we got her for the flat for it has been no easy matter.’99 Muriel also took the view that Margaret did not always notice the efforts and sacrifices her parents made for her as she tried to rise in the world.100

  Later in the summer, Roberts’s resentment of Margaret’s supposed ingratitude began to connect in his mind with a rather different anxiety. He formed the view that Margaret’s Dartford friend, Mary Rohan, was exercising a malign religious influence upon her. ‘I have been very worried about Margaret these last few days,’ he wrote to Muriel, ‘about her always having Mary with her wherever she goes, and wondering if Mary was doing a lot of Catholic propaganda with Margaret. In fact I haven’t been sleeping at nights although I haven’t mentioned the reason to Mummy.’ ‘I have written to Margaret about it,’ he went on, ‘again unknown to Mummy, as I should be grieved beyond measure if the R/Cs got hold of Margaret. She would no longer be free, and they might cause untold family misery.’ Roberts clearly saw any Romish tendencies as a form of filial betrayal:

  As you know, I have left you both free in regard to religion, as a parent must and does who trusts his children, but R/C is Spiritual Totalitarianism with all its damning intolerance for others. Margaret has been very hard at times and apparently ungrateful for all I’ve done, altho that hasn’t & wouldn’t stop me from doing all I could for either of you. But truthfully it has kept me poor, and I was beginning to rejoice that she would soon be well established & independant [sic] when she had got through the law business. Now comes this worry, and I had to know how things stand so I have written and am hoping & praying for the best. This is in confidence to you my dear, for I can open my heart to you.101

  Margaret’s reply to the letter Roberts wrote her, if ever it existed, does not survive, but she did remember her father’s worries, attributing them to both parents: ‘They would have thought becoming a Roman Catholic meant giving up one’s freedom.’102 There is no evidence that Roberts was justified in his anxieties. Margaret did not share her father’s hostility to the Roman Catholic Church, and she became increasingly sympathetic to it in later life, but her strong Christianity was never of a Catholic or sacramental or even of a churchy kind. Neither in 1951, nor later, was she about to ‘pope’. As for the idea that her sister could be ‘influenced’ by Mary Rohan, Muriel was clear: ‘I just wrote back and said, “Don’t be silly. It would take more than Mary or anyone else to influence Margaret.” ’ Besides, Mary was ‘a slave to Margaret’.103

  One of Margaret’s chief motives in getting and beautifying the flat was to impress Robert Henderson. He was quite often away from the hospital, getting free holidays on cruises as a ‘doctor at sea’ and she clearly feared that women on these voyages would prove more eligible than she. With amused horror, she described his wardrobe for a trip to Madeira. His maid, she told Muriel, had put out ‘amongst other things 58 pairs of socks and 21 shirts!!! Robert has stacks and stacks of clothes. If rationing came in it wouldn’t bother him at all.’104 As soon as she got the flat, she was determined to entertain him royally. True, she also invited ‘Dennis [sic] Thatcher … for a drink and we then went out to dinner and along to the Festival of Britain,’ but in the same letter she describes the more elaborate treatment she had given Robert: ‘Tonight Robert is coming up and we are going out for dinner. Last time he came I cooked a slap-up dinner, four courses just to show him! But I can’t rise to that every time.’105 She valued his opinion: ‘Robert came to the flat on Thursday evening last and was quite impressed with the sitting-room as it is looking at present.’106

  The last surviving references to Robert Henderson in Margaret’s correspondence date from May 1951. After that, nothing more is heard of him or Margaret’s attitude to him until a letter, dated 25 September 1951, which Alfred Roberts sent to Muriel. It is worth quoting at length. Having first announced that Beatrice Roberts is going into hospital (‘you will know what it is for’),* Roberts continues:

  Next, which will be more surprising, Margaret and Dennis [sic] Thatcher are becoming engaged, although it will not be announced until after the election [Attlee had called a general election for 25 October], probably the Tuesday after in The Times, and likely to be married first week in December. This means she will not take up her new job [she had been offered a post in a trade association] but will go on with the Law job until qualified. As I told you, I met Dennis on the Sunday I left you and heard from Margaret that he had asked her to marry him and that she was considering it but wanted to see me first. I don’t know if you have met him at Dartford but he is the Managing Director of Atlas Paints Ltd, factory at Erith. He has been taking Margaret about the place to various functions for almost two years but his proposal was unexpected. The Robert business upset Margaret very much but that will pass. Dennis has had an unfortunate experience. He was married during the war, but after only about five weekends’ leave spent with his wife she left him. She is now Lady Hicks,† it appears the title did the damage. I told Margaret she could disregard this as he was in no way at fault and actually he is an exceedingly nice fellow also of course very comfortably situated financially. They both came down on Sunday for the day as he wanted to see Mummy and to get our consent.

  Alfred Roberts went on to say that the wedding would be in London and ‘Mummy and I will be the only ones from Grantham I expect.’ Of Denis he added, ‘He runs a 1948 Jaguar and also a Triumph, but is wanting to get a Jaguar Mark V …’107

  What had happened? If one compares her references to the two men in her letters, it is clear that Margaret felt more tender towards Robert than towards Denis. Indeed, almost all her mentions of Denis are either neutral or mildly unflattering. She told Muriel, for example, after going to the play His Excellency with Denis, ‘I can’t say I really ever enjoy going out for the evening with him. He has not got a very prepossessing personality.’108 With Robert, she took trouble. Although he seems to have destroyed all their correspondence, for the rest of his life Robert kept a couple of presents that Margaret had given him – the complete works of Shakespeare inscribed ‘To Robert with love and Best wishes Margaret’ and Birds and Men, a book by the radical environmentalist E. M. (Max) Nicholson inscribed ‘to Robert with best wishes from Margaret April 1951’ (his birthday was on 7 April). He also preserved, still in its envelope addressed in her hand, a large, mounted photograph of herself that Margaret sent him. Robert wrote on the envelope ‘Margaret Roberts’ and then, in a box, the word ‘Thatcher’. Robert Henderson died in 1999 aged ninety-seven without ever having said much more than a few words on the subject, so far as is known, to friends, press or Josie, the widow he eventually married in 1960. But he was angered by a book, called Five at 10 by Diana Farr, which appeared in 1985 and which discussed the lives of the spouses of five prime ministers. Passages about Denis’s engagement to Margaret made reference to her friendship with Robert and suggested that there had been a competition between the two men for her hand. Robert told the Daily Express, ‘I never ever courted Margaret or proposed to her. It’s all ridiculous … We were never romantically involved.’109 But although it is almost certainly true that Robert never proposed to Margaret, they undoubtedly were romantically involved.

  According to Josie Henderson, her husband liked to say that ‘Denis had more money and more future and from then on, he [Robert] didn’t stand a chance … He understood that Denis was a much better catch.’110 This cannot be the whole story, however, since it do
es not explain the fact that the two men ran in parallel for two years of Margaret’s life with Denis, who met her before Robert, coming second in the race until the late summer of 1951. There is not the slightest hint in any letter of Margaret’s that she is serious about Denis, while she explicitly states that she is so about Robert. In the opinion of Muriel Cullen, the problem between Margaret and Robert was simply the age gap of twenty-four years. For this reason, she said, Margaret did not let the relationship blossom into marriage.111 Lady Thatcher herself confirmed this view. When asked about Robert Henderson by the present author, she said, ‘He was a Scot, a very good doctor, but he was much older.’ At the suggestion that Robert had perhaps hoped that she would be the future Mrs Henderson, she replied: ‘I wouldn’t disagree with that, but he was so much older.’112 If the decision was as cut and dried as that, however, why did Alfred Roberts think that his daughter had been ‘upset very much’ by it?

  On the other hand, it seems highly unlikely that Robert and Margaret parted on poor terms. Unlike with Tony Bray, she maintained friendly, though not close, relations with him. Not long after the birth of her twins, Carol and Mark, she wrote to Muriel about where she should have the infant Mark circumcised, an operation that was quite common among non-Jewish people at that time on grounds of hygiene: ‘I don’t like the idea of having it done on the Health service in London as you don’t know who is going to do it but it costs £15–£20 to have it done privately! I am writing to Robert to ask who does it at the Southern Hospital under the health service because I know Mark would be wonderfully looked after there.’113 It is not known whether the Southern Hospital did, in the end, carry out the operation, but the fact that Margaret was prepared to put her son’s manhood almost literally in the hands of her former boyfriend suggests a high level of trust. When, in the 1960s, the Thatchers lived partly in Lamberhurst, they were fairly close neighbours of the Hendersons in Brenchley and had Robert and Josie over for drinks once or twice.114 When informed, rather belatedly, of Robert’s death, Lady Thatcher wrote to his widow in condolence, apologizing for the fact that she could not attend his memorial service because of a visit to the United States. Her words, though apparently slightly formulaic, gather more meaning when one knows the history behind them: ‘Robert was a wonderful man and I know how deeply you will miss him. During his life he gave so much to others. He was one of those rare people of whom it can be said “they made a difference”.’115

  What of Denis Thatcher? Having suffered deeply in the collapse of his first marriage, and not being a man to act impulsively, he did not rush into anything. There is no evidence that he fell suddenly in love with Margaret Roberts. Rather, his admiration for the pretty, intelligent and spirited girl he had met on the night of her adoption meeting slowly grew. The first person who told him he should marry Margaret was an industry colleague, Tony Colley, chairman of the National Paint Federation dinner, to which Denis took her. Colley looked at Margaret, leant across to Denis and said, ‘That’s the one.’ But he did not decide to propose to her until he went on a bachelor holiday in France with an old schoolfriend, Kent Green, in the late summer of 1951. Denis, who was ‘rather bored with not too bright ladies’, recognized Margaret as someone with a powerful mind and character ‘different from any other young woman I’d ever met in my life’. He liked her ability to recite poetry.* ‘Let’s have a go,’ he said to himself, and when he returned from the holiday, he did, proposing to her after dinner in his flat.116† Perhaps the key difference between Denis and Robert, from Mrs Thatcher’s point of view, was that Denis asked her to marry him, and Robert did not. She feared that Robert might cast her aside and saw that Denis’s offer pre-empted this. Speaking of not marrying Robert, she said, ‘and then Denis came along. It is no good regretting what might have been.’117

  She did not say yes or no at once. As Denis put it nearly fifty years later, ‘She didn’t leap at it.’118 Denis’s proposal was a surprise, as her father’s letter on the subject to Muriel makes clear, and came at a time when her feelings about Robert Henderson were probably not fully resolved. She admired Denis as the ex-soldier, ‘obviously someone who had known authority’,119 and was pleased to have someone who shared her political interests and views, and, to be blunt, someone who had a good job and could afford a good flat in Chelsea. He was a passport to the Home Counties respectability that she sought. She liked and lent on his knowledge of business and money. She recognized him as her social superior with ‘a certain style and dash’ including his penchant for fast cars.120 She was bored by sport – he was a very serious rugby referee – but perfectly happy with his enthusiasm for it, and had no objection to his fondness for all-male jollification with what he called his ‘chums’ from the sporting and business worlds. She is probably not telling the truth when she recalls that he had a strong interest in opera which she appreciated.121 She went away and pondered his offer: ‘Things last better that way.’122 She seems to have intuited, if not actually discussed with Denis, the fact that he would accept her political ambitions, which was ‘exceptional for a man of that generation’.123 She could see that his financial and moral support would allow her to qualify for the Bar. She was worried by the fact of his divorce, but also believed him when he said that ‘he really meant it this time’.124 She wanted the security of marriage and children: she liked the age difference of eleven years. She accepted him.

  The couple drove up to Grantham to see the Robertses. As they passed the Victorian town hall, which Denis considered ‘the ugliest thing you’ve ever seen in your puff’, he said to Margaret, ‘sarcastically’, ‘ “Bet your old man’s proud of that.” She said, “Actually Father likes it very much.” I said to myself, “Watch it, Thatcher!” ’125 The meeting was amicable. Denis found Margaret’s parents to be ‘sweet people’, with ‘old man Roberts’ ‘very quiet spoken and well read’, but a bit ‘straitlaced’, and Mrs Roberts ‘very quiet, very typical of a wife’. The conversation was, Denis remembered, ‘A bit sticky. Eventually Margaret says, “Father, Denis does like a drink.” Very long faces, long hunt through the house; finally blow dust off bottle of sherry.’126 Arrangements for the wedding were made, the parties agreeing, perhaps because of Denis’s divorce, that it should take place not in Grantham but in Wesley’s Chapel in London which, according to Denis, a ‘middle-stump’ Anglican, the Robertses regarded as ‘halfway to Rome’. Relations between Denis and Margaret’s parents were to go on as they began – correct but never close. He felt that, although they had always done their best, Margaret had not had ‘all that happy a childhood’: ‘It was work, work, work, all her life.’127 Among other things, Denis provided what might be called a pleasure principle that her upbringing had almost entirely lacked. He too was a hard worker, but he enjoyed life, and he would help her enjoy it.

  In the extremely short term, however, Denis’s proposal presented Margaret with a problem. She did not want it known until the general election of 1951 was out of the way. Despite the universal popularity of marriage in those days, an engagement would not have been seen as an electoral advantage,* since wedlock generally signalled an end to a woman’s career. Besides, an additional reason for secrecy lay in Denis’s divorce, then a far more controversial issue than today. As Alfred Roberts had said in his letter to Muriel, Denis’s marriage, contracted in wartime, had collapsed in his absence in the army through no fault of his own. The couple had married in 1942, but had quickly been separated by the demands of his military service. When he was demobbed in 1946, he found that his marriage was effectively over. His wife, also called Margaret (née Kempson), had taken up with a baronet called Sir Howard Hickman. She and Denis divorced in 1948. Interviewed about it by Denis’s daughter Carol in the 1990s, the first Mrs Thatcher blamed herself: ‘it was entirely my fault, and I regret it a lot … The war was a strange time … You grabbed happiness while you could.’128

  Rather as Margaret probably had more romantic feelings about Robert Henderson than she did about Denis, so Denis probabl
y felt more passionately for the first Margaret (always known as Margot) than he did for the second. Asking Carol about her visit to Margot in old age, Denis inquired, ‘rather misty-eyed’, ‘Is she still incredibly beautiful?’129 He had fallen in love with the first Margaret suddenly, and so walked slowly, cautiously into a calmer, more longer-lasting love with the second. His hurt at the collapse of his first marriage caused him to avoid talking about it, a decision with which his second wife was naturally happy. ‘I never met her,’ she later recalled, ‘and we never used to mention it. It was a typical wartime marriage.’130 But it was not, of course, a matter indifferent to her. When Mrs Thatcher left 10 Downing Street in 1990, the Queen asked her if there was any honour she sought. She replied that she would like one for Denis (her own honours were to come in later years): she wanted him to become a baronet. Part of the motive for this was to ensure a hereditary honour for her son Mark, much of it was a simple act of gratitude to Denis, but it seems possible that the choice of a baronetcy may have been a form of polite revenge for the injury he had received long ago, or perhaps a backhanded acknowledgment of the way in which her husband had become free to marry her. Lady Hickman died in 1996. When this happened, Lady Thatcher confided to her long-standing assistant, Cynthia Crawford, ‘Crawfie, I shall always be only the second Mrs Thatcher.’131 She became, however, the first Lady Thatcher.