Margaret Thatcher - Margaret Thatcher - The Autobiography

M A R G A R E T

T H A T C H E R

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

EDITOR’S NOTE

CHAPTER 1 A Provincial Childhood

CHAPTER 2 Gowns-woman

CHAPTER 3 House Bound

CHAPTER 4 The Outer Circle

CHAPTER 5 A World of Shadows

CHAPTER 6 Teacher’s Pest

CHAPTER 7 No End of a Lesson

CHAPTER 8 Seizing the Moment

CHAPTER 9 A Bumpy Ride

CHAPTER 10 Détente or Defeat?

CHAPTER 11 Apprenticeship for Power

CHAPTER 12 Just One Chance …

CHAPTER 13 Over the Shop

CHAPTER 14 Changing Signals

CHAPTER 15 Into the Whirlwind

CHAPTER 16 Not At All Right, Jack

CHAPTER 17 Not for Turning

CHAPTER 18 The West and the Rest

CHAPTER 19 The Falklands War: Follow the Fleet

CHAPTER 20 The Falklands: Victory

CHAPTER 21 Generals, Commissars and Mandarins

CHAPTER 22 Disarming the Left

CHAPTER 23 Home and Dry

CHAPTER 24 Back to Normalcy

CHAPTER 25 Mr Scargill’s Insurrection

CHAPTER 26 Shadows of Gunmen

CHAPTER 27 Keeps Raining All the Time

CHAPTER 28 Men to Do Business With

CHAPTER 29 Putting the World to Rights

CHAPTER 30 Jeux Sans Frontières

CHAPTER 31 Hat Trick

CHAPTER 32 An Improving Disposition

CHAPTER 33 Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life

CHAPTER 34 A Little Local Difficulty

CHAPTER 35 To Cut and to Please

CHAPTER 36 Floaters and Fixers

CHAPTER 37 The Babel Express

CHAPTER 38 The World Turned Right Side Up

CHAPTER 39 No Time to Go Wobbly

CHAPTER 40 Men in Lifeboats

Photo Inserts

CHRONOLOGY 1955–1990

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

INDEX

COPYRIGHT

About the Publisher

My father

My mother

My father’s shop in Grantham (Express Newspapers)

With my father

With my sister Muriel (F/T, Camera Press, London)

In the garden at the house of some friends Muriel, father, mother and me

At Somerville College, Oxford (By courtesy of the Principal and Fellows of Somerville College)

At work as a research chemist (Heute Magazine)

With Denis on our wedding day (Press Association Images)

My 1951 election address

As MP for Finchley (NI Syndication)

With Ted Heath at the Conservative Party Conference (Popperfoto/Getty Images)

Visiting a primary school as Secretary of State for Education

With Denis, Carol and Mark (NI Syndication/Arthur Steel)

Meeting the press at Conservative Central Office (Fox Photos)

The State Opening of Parliament (Getty Images)

Delivering the ‘Iron Lady’ speech in Kensington (Press Association Images)

On a walkabout in Huddersfield (Srdja Djukanovic)

On the stairs at Central Office following the 1979 general election victory (Lionel Chaerruault/Camera Press, London)

With Denis outside No. 10 (NI Syndication/Tony Eyles)

At the funeral of Airey Neave (Popperfoto/Getty Images)

Presenting deeds in Milton Keynes (Getty Images)

Addressing the Conservative Party Conference in Brighton (Press Association Images)

Visiting my old school in Grantham (NI Syndication/Arthur Edwards)

HMS Invincible returning to Portsmouth at the end of the Falklands War (Telegraph Syndication)

Presenting medals on board HMS Hermes (Martin Cleaver/Press Association Images)

On the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral (Press Association Images)

With Cecil Parkinson at Central Office (Herbie Knott/Rex Features)

At my desk at No. 10 (NI Syndication/John Manning)

The Grand Hotel in Brighton, after the bombing (Mike Abrahams/Alamy)

Leaving the Grand Hotel with Denis (Press Association Images)

Photocall at Chequers with the Gorbachevs (Getty Images)

Meeting Den Xiaoping (Xinhua, Camera Press, London)

With President Reagan at Camp David (Official White House Photograph)

Signing the Anglo-Irish Agreement (Press Association Images)

Greeting the Queen outside No. 10 (NI Syndication/Arthur Edwards)

With President Mitterand in 1986 (NI Syndication/Harry Kerr)

Some of the Commonwealth leaders who attended the Special Commonwealth Conference in London (Roger Hutchings/OBS, Camera Press, London)

In the kitchen at No. 10 (NI Syndication/Sally Soames)

With Denis in Cornwall (NI Syndication/Graham Wood)

Launching the 1987 general election manifesto Talking to the media from the Conservative Party ‘battle bus’ (NI Syndication/Graham Wood)

Outside No. 10 with Denis (NI Syndication/R Bamber)

With Neil Kinnock at the State Opening of Parliament (NI Syndication)

Walking across a desolate urban landscape near Stockton-on-Tees (NI Syndication/Chris Harries)

With President Reagan outside No. 10 (NI Syndication/John Rogers)

At the dinner at No. 10 held in honour of President Reagan White House Photograph)

Test driving the new Challenger tank (Joel Fink/AP/Press Association Images)

Arriving at Camp David by helicopter (Official White House Photograph)

With Helmut Kohl (NI Syndication)

With Boris Yeltsin (Camera Press, London)

With Nelson Mandela (Camera Press, London)

Addressing the United Nations General Assembly (Courtesy of the United Nations)

Receiving a standing ovation at the Party Conference (NI Syndication/Simon Townsley)

With members of the Cabinet and Denis at the Carlton Club Answering questions in the House of Commons (Press Association Images)

Driving away from Buckingham Palace (Geraint Lewis)

Leaving No. 10 for the last time (Richard Open/Camera Press, London)

The present edition is an abridged version of the original two volumes of Margaret Thatcher’s memoirs. The Downing Street Years , describing the author’s time as Prime Minister, was the first to appear, in 1993. The Path to Power , an account of her youth and early political career, was published two years later. The reverse chronological order was a response to the demands of the market and the relative interest of readers. But it had drawbacks.

This single, abridged volume sets them right. It begins at the beginning and ends at the – very dramatic – end. It excludes altogether the last section of The Path to Power , which was a series of essays on issues of the day. Also excluded, for brevity’s sake, are the dedications, acknowledgements, many footnotes and most of the appendices, along with some discursive sections and travelogues that have lost immediate interest. That said, all the key moments, events, issues, exchanges and arguments are here. Arguably, the compression results in a stronger, sharper self-portrait of one of the twentieth century’s towering figures.

ROBIN HARRIS