I was at work in a small office in Sutton on 22nd November 1990. It was a busy place and the people upstairs worked with the Radio on as background noise. Natalie shouted “She’s Gone!” and we all knew exactly what she was referring to.
Not exactly a JFK or Diana moment, but one I remember very clearly. Margaret Thatcher’s time as PM had ended after 11 and a half years.
She had been under pressure for a few weeks but you felt that she would belligerently tough it out. In a Brian Walden interview not long before this – she seemed invincible, at the height of her powers. Even when she had descended the steps in Paris (completely intentionally) to interrupt John Sargent’s live piece to camera on the BBC news a few evenings earlier – the message was one of defiance and cheerful resolve to get through. It wasn’t to be.
When John Major took over and announced that he had accepted the job as PM, Thatcher’s silhouette could be seen from a window at No 10.
It felt like a moment of great importance but we had pretty much more of the same for another 7 years. We weren’t to know this at the time, of course.
What are your memories of that time?
mikethep says
The Crown has brought it all flooding back – that awful singsong voice, that habit of addressing us all as if we were idiots. Very pleasing to know Her Madge detested her as much as we did. True that the rest of her ghastly crew were with us for another 7 years, but these days I look back on them with something approaching fondness.
Not her demise exactly, but for about 15 years I wrote a pseudonymous, occasionally hilarious fortnightly column for The Bookseller, Organ of the Book Trade, taking the piss out of anything I could find. I remember how appalled I was when I discovered that the audio book of Thatcher’s memoirs was going to be read by Thatcher herself. I wrote this nightmarish, nay Ballardian vision of hundreds of reps and middle managers flogging up and down the motorways in their Sierras listening to it, and one sorry soul having an orgasm and causing a huge pileup, hundreds of cars, their dead drivers hanging out of the doors, no sound but that voice sing-songing away from hundreds of cassette players, each one at a different point in the book. Think you might have gone too far this time old chap, said the Editor, and toned it down so far I said he might as well spike it.
Vulpes Vulpes says
There’s a Cronenberg movie in there mate, you should flog the piece to Hollywood.
Gatz says
You weren’t Fred ‘My Week and Welcome To It’ Nolan were you?
mikethep says
No, I was William Boot. I named myself after the Waugh character who accidentally stumbled into journalism.
Moose the Mooche says
Here’s a pound!
….oh no, that was Henry Root..
Gatz says
Thank goodness for that.
I enjoyed your William Boot column, but old Fred’s contained some attitudes which seemed severely dated even in the 90s. One of the last ones I remember was a series of ‘hilarious’ politically correct altered book titles which culminated in ‘Scott Turow’s The Burden of Poof!!!’ [exclamation marks Fred’s own]. I was surprised that one even made it to print, and I think his column was quietly dropped after that.
Was it the William Boot column which frequently contained fond references to ‘master bookseller Eric Norris’? Eric was a regular in our shop, always to glance through a book and return it to the shelves because he had been invited to some publishing do and wanted to do his homework but couldn’t afford to buy anything. He was full of great stories but didn’t have two pennies to rub together.
mikethep says
Fred Nolan wrote for the competition, Publishing News, fondly known as Skateboarder’s Weekly for reasons nobody can remember. He was definitely old school.
Eric Norris means nothing to me, I’m afraid, although a bit of Googling tells me he supplied literary gossip to the Daily Telegraph’s Peterborough column. Definitely beyond the pale. It was probably Horace Bent who wrote about him – Horace was whoever was editor at the time.
Mrbellows says
I’m fascinated by your career and how it has led you here amongst the lost toys of lost toys Island.
fentonsteve says
I was in a lecture in the university Physics building. Someone opened the door and shouted “Thatcher’s gone”. The Students Union bar was unusually busy that lunchtime.
Vulpes Vulpes says
30 years ago? Shome mishtake shurley?
Abandoned Luncheonette came out in 1973, so it was 47 years ago!
Smiles Diles says
Oh my… that is one hell of a performance..,
Vulpes Vulpes says
Spine-tinglingly brilliant weren’t they? The whole album is a joy.
Twang says
The best of Rock n Soul Pt. 1 is utterly brilliant and has a stunning live version of Wait for Me which concludes with a fab guitar solo from GE Smith. Everyone should have a copy.
Moose the Mooche says
It intersects with the arrival on Twin Peaks on British telly.
She wasn’t excellent in that.
Gatz says
As I remember we went out for a work curry that night, which had been arranged some time before but unusually exuberant in celebration.
Gatz says
Looking around the papers I am reminded that she was ousted despite the Conservatives having a 102 seat majority, which seems extraordinary. Then Major stood as PM and received what is still the highest number of votes ever cast for a party in a UK general election.
dai says
Didn’t Teresa May get more?
Gatz says
No, at the time her party got the second highest, since overtajpken by Johnson. Figures are from Wiki
Major 1992 – 14093007
May 2017 – 1363684
Johnson 2019 – 13966454
I think Blair in 1997 may have got the highest number of Labour votes, 13518167
Sitheref2409 says
Any idea what those numbers are like when expressed as a %age of eligible voting population? That might be interesting.
Gatz says
Seeing as you ask @sitheref and I’m warming up for work, though I should warn you that I spotted a typo in the figure for May when I was preparing these. Again, all stats from Wiki.
dai says
Percentage of vote doesn’t really change too much for the winner does it? Low turnout last year because of election fatigue presumably, Scottish referendum, General Election, Brexit vote,General Election,General Election etc all in 5 years.
Moose the Mooche says
The real shocker is when you look at 1997 and then 2001. Twelve million votes dropped in total. Twelve bloody million!
Kaisfatdad says
I am told champagne sold in the off-liences in Islington and there was dancing in the streets.
I was living n Swede and got a completely incomprehensible phone call from a friend in N London.
Under the affluence of inkohol she just kept singing:
“The wicked witch is dead.
“The wicked witch is dead.”
Over in Pinner, my parents were very sad. They loved her.
Talk about the UK being a divided country.
hubert rawlinson says
The slight tear in her eye as she was driven from downing Street.
Salty says
Funnily enough, I walked to work in Wandsworth with the sitting MP for Tooting, who was like a kid on Christmas morning, knowing something very special was going to happen.
It was a great day, but not quite so euphoric as when Blair won in 1997.
Tony Japanese says
I was too busy trying to read Roger Red Hat or Billy Blue Hat at the time.
Moose the Mooche says
Billy got a severe talking-to from The Men In Grey Hats, as I recall.
Vincent says
I was doing neuropsychological testing of a prisoner for HIV-related brain damage (he was fine). The prison officer was outside the door in case the prisoner made a run for it. The nurse came along and told us of Thatch’s resignation. The con and I stood up, shook hands, and said “thank fuck she’s gone”. It was a unifying moment.
dai says
I remember talking to my uncle, I said surely Major will be better, his one word answer “stooges”
Black Type says
Wow! You have an Uncle Osterberg!
deramdaze says
I definitely remember thinking and saying that the Children of Thatcher would be worse … and I was … oh, what’s that phrase I’m searching for? … oh yeah … 100% right.
I didn’t much care for Thatcher and I hated the dire 1980s but (a) she wasn’t handed it on a plate through the Old Boys’ Network, (b) she obviously wasn’t thick, (c) she knew her brief and prepared thoroughly, (d) personally, I think she did have a moral compass, and (e) she clearly wasn’t in it for herself and her own ego.
Uncle Wheaty says
Completely agree.
She had her ideals and kept to them whether you agree with them or not.
Gary says
Ideals that included support for Pol Pot, Pinochet and Botha. Some moral compass.
Moose the Mooche says
Ideal… punishing those parts of the country that don’t vote Conservative.
“One nation? Nope!”
Diddley Farquar says
You could say the same for the final solution hitmaker. 🤔
Mike_H says
Yes Maggie and that German bloke had some pretty disgraceful ideals and principles, but BoJo has none at all. Where one would expect to find morals, principles, ideals and a moral compass of some sort, no matter how degraded and broken, BoJo has an empty space.
Nothing, nada, zilch.
Mrbellows says
Happy days! Almost as good as watching the Windsor Castle blaze.
mikethep says
If I may be stuffy for a moment…I got no pleasure from watching Windsor Castle burn, any more than I got from watching Notre Dame burn. Nothing to do with the Queen.
Mrbellows says
Oh I was fucking willing it on. I was watching it in real time and exclaiming,burn baby burn!
thecheshirecat says
No fan of Thatcher, but I put it you that she would have sacked Williamson, she would have sacked Cummings, she would have sacked Patel. She knew that there were lines that should not be crossed, though ultimately she didn’t always judge correctly which lines they were.
count jim moriarty says
She wouldn’t have appointed a pair of imbeciles like Patel and Williamson in the first place. They are where they are purely because they are rabid Brexiteers, not for any talent which they might possess.
thecheshirecat says
There is that. But also, she seemed to have a wider pool from which to draw. Possibly because she hadn’t frogmarched a significant wing out of her party a few months earlier.
Black Celebration says
John Selwyn Gummer
Patrick Mayhew
David Mellor
David Howell
Lord Soames
Cecil Parkinson
Leon Brittan
Francis Pym
All served under Thatcher and would be right at home in a Johnson cabinet, so shit were they.
Vulpes Vulpes says
Please let’s not forget the spectacularly corrosive input from that Olympian champion of enlightenment called Keith Joseph.