Q: How often did Margaret Thatcher meet Winston Churchill?

In a recent podcast, Steve Winduss interviewed Bill Murray, son of Churchill’s longtime bodyguard Edmund Murray. Bill recounted a 1964 meeting between WSC and Margaret Thatcher. Were there any other encounters?” —P.R., England

A: Twice, in 1950 and 1964

Charles Moore’s From Dartford to the Falklands, his biography of Margaret Thatcher, describes what he thought at the time was their only meeting. It occurred in January 1950, when 25-year-old Margaret Roberts (as she then was), ran for Parliament for the first time.

The contested seat was Dartford, Kent, then a Labour Party stronghold, held by Labour’s popular Norman Dodds. Miss Roberts ran a spirited campaign. A famous Churchill associate, Bill Deedes (later Lord Deedes), who did win a seat in that election, remarked: “Once she opened her mouth, the rest began to look rather second-rate.”

Roberts reduced Dodds’s previous majority by 6000 votes over the combined Conservative-Liberal competition. In 1951 she ran again, a one-on-one match, cutting into Dodds’s lead again. It was the beginning of a career that would see Margaret Thatcher elected for Finchley in 1959. And the rest is history.

Churchill’s endorsement

Bill Murray revealed that Churchill wrote a letter endorsing Margaret Roberts’ candidacy:

We have set out the methods by which we Conservatives intend—if returned to power—to restore our national finances, regain our independence, and set our country once more on the highway to eventual prosperity. Miss Margaret Roberts, the Conservative candidate, is pledged to support this policy, which I commend to you. I ask you to give her your votes in the full confidence that she will discharge her parliamentary duties by combining the care of your interests with the interest of the British nation.

There is no indication that they met in the campaign, but the stage was set for an encounter. On 7 June 1950, Margaret Roberts was the “youth speaker” offering a vote of thanks to Churchill at a party rally at the Royal Albert Hall. This was a mass meeting of 7000 members of the Conservative Women’s Association.

“The Winston meeting went off quite well,” she wrote her sister. I was absolutely terrified of the enormous audience but got through all right. Everyone was very flattering about it.” Alas, Moore writes, “there is no record or memory of the private words that she and Churchill exchanged or of what she said in her vote of thanks.” Fortunately for history, there is a complete record of Churchill’s.

“The noble structure of State-planned controls…”

It was a grand, rollicking rally that Churchill rose to address. In the January election, the Conservatives had gained 90 seats, only 16 short of Labour. Combined with the ten Liberals, whom Churchill was overtly courting, they were close to a majority. It was obvious that Prime Minister Attlee would have to go to the country again, soon. Churchill took aim at the bureaucratic super-state he saw developing under what he always referred to as “the Socialists”:

Three years ago I proclaimed the watch-words, “set the people free.” What a clamour the Socialists raised at that. How shocking, they exclaimed, that anyone should seek to weaken that noble structure of State-planned controls and regulations enforced by two million officials, national and local, by which alone we could be kept alive. But now we see them on all sides casting away these very restrictions and controls which they assured us were the only means by which we could enter the brave new world from which they are running away so fast with their tails between their legs (laughter).

“An experiment in freedom”?

With words that resonate today—when we face the same sort of attitude by a regulatory state vying to rule us—Churchill then turned to Hugh Dalton, Labour’s Minister of Town and Country Planning. In summarizing a minor rollback of regulations, Dalton had declared: “This is an experiment in freedom. Be careful you do not abuse it.”

Was there ever a better example of the Statist mindset, then or now? Churchill was outraged:

Could you have anything more characteristic of the Socialist rulers’ outlook towards the public? Freedom is a favour; it is an experiment which the governing class of Socialist politicians will immediately curtail if they are displeased with our behavior.

What a way to talk to the British people! As a race we have been experimenting in freedom, not entirely without success, for several centuries, according to what I read in the history books, and have spread the ideas of freedom widely throughout the world. And yet, here is this Minister, who speaks to us as if it lay with him to dole out our liberties as if he were giving biscuits to a dog who will sit up and beg prettily. But all I can say is that we have chopped off several better heads than Dalton’s in the past.

Oh dear, that would be deemed very offensive nowadays. But it seems to be all right to hold up the severed mock-head of unpopular presidents across the pond.

Fourteen years on: 1964

Charles Moore wrote that 1950 was Margaret Thatcher’s only meeting with Churchill, but the recent podcast reminds us of another. Bill Murray explained that his father Edmund, Churchill’s bodyguard, first met Thatcher in March 1964. As the elder Murray wrote, they met in a troubling circumstance.

Eddie’s daughter Aileen, returning home one night, was followed by a stalker near a patch of wood in East Finchley. The police found no trace of him, but Eddie believed the miscreant had sheltered in a badly fenced wood. Since it was in Mrs. Thatcher’s constituency, he called her to complain. The very next day

I had a letter from her private secretary, and the day after she came to see my wife and me and was very kind indeed and promised to look into the question of the railings. The next time I went to look, months later, new railings had been erected and the wood was only open during hours of daylight, having new strong gates that were locked at night.

MPs usually didn’t visit individual constituents, but Mrs. Thatcher knew Murray from Churchill’s visits to the House of Commons. Given the awe she felt for Sir Winston, it is believable that she went out of her way to assist.

The second meeting

Sergeant Murray next describes how his encounter with Margaret Thatcher led to her second meeting with Sir Winston:

Mrs. Thatcher could never pass the door to the [House of Commons] Smoking Room, when she saw me standing outside, without looking through the glass of the door to see my boss. I suggested that Sir Winston would be very happy to meet her, but she was always too shy to go in. However, there did come a day when she came along the corridor in front of the Smoking Room when I was there with Sir Winston, just on our way towards the lift and the car. With great pleasure I was able to tell Sir Winston as I introduced him to the lady who was one day to fill the seat he had been so proud to hold as Prime Minister of our great country, that she had helped me in a domestic matter. They shook hands and I felt at the time that Mrs. Thatcher was a very happy woman. Sir Winston beamed at her, seeming to indicate that he was also very happy that one of his party could spend time helping one of his friends.

Per Murray’s account, it is hard to imagine the Iron Lady, always known for forthrightness, being shy about anybody. But Margaret Thatcher’s respect for Churchill was lifelong. And Churchill’s words on the regulatory state in 1950 could have been her own words, 30 years later. When it came to liberty, neither of them was for turning.

Audio and further reading

“Margaret Thatcher 1923-2013: A Churchillian Remembrance,” 2020

Scroll to “Eddie’s Shannon Experience” in Lectures at Sea, 2019.

John O’Sullivan, “Margaret Thatcher: A Legacy of Freedom,” Hillsdale College Imprimis, 2008.

Everyone is familiar with Margaret Thatcher’s career. Everyone depending on their politics will have their own vision. It is left to say here what she meant to the memory of Winston Churchill, the prime minister she revered above all. More than anyone who lived at 10 Downing Street, she had real appreciation for him. She read his books, quoted him frequently, even hosted a dinner for his family and surviving members of his wartime coalition.

In 1993 she was in Washington to coincide with a Churchill Conference hosting 500 people, including 140 students, a dozen luminaries, and ambassadors from Britain and the Commonwealth. Ambassador Sir Robin Renwick kindly hosted a reception for her and us at the British Embassy, inviting Colin Powell and Caspar Weinberger. Here I first caught sight of the famous leader, though my wife, a much better talker, spent more time chatting with her.

I did overhear a conversation between Lady Thatcher and General Powell, which at the time I thought singular. “Now Colin,” she was saying in her most powerful tones, “you must do it—you know you must. There is no getting around your duty.” I am told she was asking him to use his influence in solving the strife in Bosnia that had erupted the previous year.

Falklands reveries

She gave an eloquent little speech thanking America for supporting Britain in the 1982 Falklands War. The next evening at the Mayflower Hotel, I was seated next to former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick. She wanted to know what Lady Thatcher had said.

Unknowing, I repeated her words: “Many voices in America were opposed to helping Britain. But Cap Weinberger was not one of those voices.”

There was a pause. Then Mrs. Kirkpatrick said quietly: “I was one of those voices.”

Realizing my gaffe, but opting for Napoleon’s “l’audace, toujours l’audace,” I screwed up my courage and replied: “But you were wrong, weren’t you?”

An even long pause ensued, bringing to mind Churchill’s remark: “It certainly seemed longer than the two minutes which one observes in the commemorations of Armistice Day.”

Finally Ambassador Kirkpatrick kindly said: “Yes, on reflection, I probably was.” I think this showed the power of personality that Margaret Thatcher exerted, even on those who had disagreed with her.

Lady Thatcher and The Dream

At the Embassy I presented her with a finely bound copy of Churchill’s 1947 short story, The Dream. Therein he tells the ghost of his father all that happened since Lord Randolph Churchill died in 1895. At one point, Winston says there are now women in the House of Commons. “Not many,” he assures his flabbergasted papa. “They have found their level.”

Lady Thatcher wrote me that she stayed up all that night reading the story. Later she remarked, “I roared at that one.”

“He’s with me.”

We met again at Fulton in 1996, when the National Churchill Museum marked the 50th anniversary of the “Iron Curtain” speech. They invited Lady Thatcher to give the address. Afterwards, she was surrounded by Fulton people—and by heavy security.

Celia Sandys asked, “Have you been ushered into The Presence?” No, I said. “Follow me,” she replied, approaching the guard at the inner sanctum: “I am Sir Winston Churchill’s granddaughter—and he’s with me.” We were allowed in to say hello.

Payback: at dinner that night, our generous hosts inducted two new Fellows of the Churchill Memorial. One was Margaret Thatcher. The other was me.

To my relief, they presented my gong first, which gave me a chance to say thanks and get out of the way:

“To receive this at the same time with the greatest prime minister since Winston Churchill is a unique experience.” I said that looking directly at the great lady….who gave me a benignant wink.

The debt we owe

It was years before the gratitude due to her was toted up. As a regular visitor in those years, I could not help but notice the palpable improvement in the lot of Britons. Anyone who saw her in Parliament witnessed her devastating effectiveness in debate.

No one who admires principle and courage could help but admire her devotion to them, win or lose. The poll tax issue some say was her downfall in 1992 manifested her principle that the cost of local government should be paid by all, including those who previously paid nothing, while voting for everything.

Internationally, she was always out front. Her reaction to tyrants, from Leopoldo Galtieri to Saddam Hussein, was consistent. She was the first to say “we can do business” with Gorbachev. More than talk, her support of the Anglo-American alliance was an article of faith.

Her relationship with President Reagan was a model we may never see again. Yet when she disagreed, as over Grenada or Strategic Defense, there was no doubt where she stood. She fought the good fight and made a huge difference, for a time.

I fear betimes that her era is past, lost in a collectivist and globalist dream. Be that as it may, I have no hesitation in paraphrasing Sir Winston’s words about Roosevelt. She was the greatest British friend we have known since Churchill, and one of the greatest champions of freedom who ever brought help and comfort from the old world to the new.

Further reading

“Margaret Thatcher and Winston Churchill: Two Meetings,” 2023.

“Thatcher to Congress, 1985: Worth Remembering,” 2016.

The Dream…

… is the most mysterious and ethereal story Winston Churchill ever wrote. Yet the more we know about him, the better we may understand how he came to write it.

Replete with broad-sweep Churchillian narrative, The Dream contains many references to now-obscure people, places and things. The new online version published by Hillsdale provides links to all of them. You need only click on any unfamiliar name or term for links to online references. After reading the story, click here for a thoughtful appreciation by Katie Davenport, a Churchill Fellow at Hillsdale College.

Churchill wrote The Dream in 1947, a low point in his political career. Two years earlier, British voters had turned his Conservative Party out of office. The former Prime Minister was now a frustrated Leader of the Opposition. But political reverses often brought out the best in his writing. Churchill’s great war memoir, The World Crisis, began appearing at a similar low point, after he had lost his seat in Parliament in 1922-24. Marlborough, his noble biography, was written in the 1930s, as he grieved over the nation’s failure to heed his warnings about Hitler.

Origins

The poignancy of The Dream is heightened by the appearance of Winston’s father, Lord Randolph Churchill. Dead in 1895 at the age of forty-six, Lord Randolph had not lived to see, nor indeed ever imagined, his son at the pinnacle of their country’s affairs.

Lord Randolph’s own career had lasted scarcely twenty years. Elected to Parliament in 1874, he rose meteorically. By 1884 he was Leader of the House of Commons and Chancellor of the Exchequer. But in 1886 he resigned over a trivial matter, never to rise again. Compared with Winston, Randolph was a footnote in British history.

The boy Winston worshiped his father from afar, but never conquered Lord Randolph’s disdain. It was his lifelong regret that his father did not live to see what he had achieved. It is part of the artistry of this tale that the inquisitive young father of forty never learns what his seventy-three-year-old son became.

The Dream was first mentioned during a family dinner at Chartwell, Churchill’s beloved home in the lush Kentish countryside, twenty-five miles outside London. He entitled the story “Private Article,” showing it only to his family, resisting their urgings that it be published. In his will he bequeathed the text to his wife, who donated it to Churchill College, Cambridge. On the first anniversary of his funeral, 30 January 1966, it was published in The Sunday Telegraph. The Dream has also appeared as a stand-alone volume in two private printings and a fine 2005 edition by Levenger Press.

Reactions

Winston Churchill was a man of transcendental powers. He could, it seems, peer beyond reality. Jon Meacham, author of the seminal Franklin and Winston, believes The Dream sheds light on Churchill’s ability to put a better face on things than they really were: to revere a father who overlooked him; to revere Roosevelt, who, in their later encounters, was less than forthright.

Margaret Thatcher, in my view the greatest British prime minister since Churchill, took a right and kind view of The Dream’s Victorian lurches—which are anything but politically correct. In 1993 I presented her with a private printing. She thanked me in her own hand the next day. “I read it in the early hours of this morning,” she wrote, “and am totally fascinated by the imagination of the story and how much it reveals of Winston the man and the son.” Later I asked what she thought of Churchill’s remark about women in the House of Commons: “They have found their level.” Lady Thatcher beamed: “I roared at that one.”

While vague about the hereafter, Churchill always held that “man is spirit,” and believed in a kind of spiritual connection with his forebears. On 24 January 1953, he told his private secretary, John Colville, that he would die on that date—the same date his father had died in 1895. Twelve years later Churchill lapsed into a coma on January 10th. Confidently, Colville assured The Queen’s private secretary: “He won’t die until the 24th.” Unconscious, Churchill did just that.

One question about The Dream that tantalized his family  is whether the story was really fiction. When asked this question, Sir Winston Churchill would smile and say, “Not entirely.”

Short-term troubles

The gnashing of teeth over the upset Brexit victory resounds around the world. For awhile, chaos will attend financial markets, and the pound will take a dip (boosting British exports).

The Scots voted against Brexit, though not in the numbers predicted. Many voted “Remain” because they feared Brexit would mean another Scottish independence fracas. Others will complain and demand more autonomy. They would be mistaken to support independence given current oil prices. And they receive a great deal from being part of the UK. The Scots also need to fish. They will come to appreciate regaining control of their own conservation policies.

Nannies and minders

The New Yorker predicted defeat for Brexit and UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage, whom they compared to Donald Trump. Farage leads a party with one seat in Parliament. He will not be prime minister. Trump believes (improbably) that he will be president, and his party (if it is his party) holds majorities in Congress. Farage is far more articulate and silver tongued, though the Trumpeters are trying to polish their very rough diamond.

Never mind, the Evening Standard assured its readers, the vote may mean nothing. Brexit will require an Act of Parliament. The EU will have something to say about that. Few MPs are likely to vote against a referendum with the highest turnout in thirty years. The EU bullied the Dutch, Irish and Danes when they showed signs of independence. It is less apt to bully the fifth largest economy. It needs Britain too, after all.

In the end, the argument over Brexit came down to statists vs. libertarians. Statists think the state must regulate every aspect of people’s lives. The proles are too dumb to know what’s best for them.  After the vote, the Establishment and the BBC  forecast apocalypse: surprise. In 1992, Britain opted out of the Eurozone. The same people predicted a recession and the end of the City of London as a financial mecca. You don’t hear a peep about adopting the euro today. Predicting disaster if they don’t get their way is a common tactic among our respective national nannies.

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