I also felt that the Party was on course for winning the general election. There had been a large number of Tory gains in the local elections in May, and conditions looked increasingly favourable for a Conservative general election victory. In Finchley we got on with our final preparations. In fact, I was on holiday with Denis and the twins on the Isle of Wight when the general election was called, and so I hurried back to London. The campaign itself, though the issues of Suez and rent decontrol were thrown back at me, was largely about which party could better secure and manage prosperity. In the debates I held with the other candidates in the churches and synagogues of Finchley that was always the underlying question. This was favourable territory. For, as we claimed, life really was better with the Conservatives — in Finchley as elsewhere. On top of the sense of prosperity, there was an awareness that in Harold Macmillan Britain had a statesman capable of acting a distinguished role on the international stage, whether it was in the United States or the Soviet Union or Continental Europe.
My first general election polling day in Finchley in October 1959 was very much to set the pattern for the nine such polling days which would succeed it. Soon after the opening of the poll I would vote in my own home constituency — Orpington in 1959, Chelsea and Westminster in later elections — and then drive up to Finchley with Denis. I visited each of the polling stations and our committee rooms, breaking for lunch with Bertie Blatch and others in a hotel. There I rigorously paid just for my own food and drink, to avoid the accusation of ‘treating’ electors, terror of which is instilled by Conservative Central Office into all our candidates. From five o’clock I carefully avoided visiting committee rooms, which should all be sending out workers to summon our supporters to the polls, just dropping into a polling station or two to show the flag. Then at close of poll Denis and I went to the Blatches for something to eat, visited the constituency offices to catch the latest largely anecdotal news, and finally attended the count — on this occasion at Christ’s College, though later all nine constituency counts would be held at Barnet Town Hall.
At the school, I found that each of the candidates had been allocated a room where he or she with a select band of supporters who had tickets for the count could get something to eat and drink and where we had access to that miracle of modern political life — a television. The 1959 campaign had, in fact, been the first in which television played a serious part. And it was the television results service which now told me how the Party was faring in the country. I divided my time between watching the growing piles of ballot papers, candidate by candidate, on the long tables in the body of the hall, and slipping back to my room to catch the equally satisfactory results coming in across the country as a whole.
At about 12.30 a.m. I was told that the Finchley results were shortly to be announced, and was asked to join the Electoral Returning Officer with the other candidates on the platform. Perhaps some people in a safe seat when the Tories were on course for a national victory would have been confident or even complacent. Not me. Throughout my time in politics, whether from some sixth sense or perhaps — who knows? — from mere superstition, I have associated such attitudes with imminent disaster. So I stood by the side of Denis with a fixed smile and tried not to look as I felt.
The Returning Officer began: ‘Deakins, Eric Petro: thirteen thousand, four hundred and thirty-seven.’ (Labour cheers.) ‘Spence, Henry Ivan: twelve thousand, seven hundred and one.’ (Liberal cheers.) And finally we reached: ‘Thatcher, Margaret Hilda: twenty-nine thousand, six hundred and ninety-seven.’ I was home and dry — and not just with plenty to spare but with a majority of 16,260, almost 3,500 more than my predecessor. The cheers, always more controlled from Tory than from Liberal or socialist lips, rose. I made my short speech of acceptance, thanked all my splendid helpers, received a warm hug from Denis and walked down from the platform — the elected Member for Finchley.
In an unguarded moment, shortly after I had been selected for Finchley, I had told the twins that once I became an MP they could have tea on the terrace of the House of Commons. From then on the plaintive request had been: ‘Aren’t you there yet, Mummy? It’s taking a long time.’ I had known the feeling. It had seemed so very long for me too. But I now knew that within weeks I would take my seat on the green leather benches of the House of Commons.
It was the first step.
CHAPTER IV
The Outer Circle
Backbencher and junior minister 1959–1964
A GARDEN AT LAST
By now my family and I were comfortably installed in a large-ish detached house at Farnborough in Kent. We had decided to buy ‘Dormers’, which we saw advertised in Country Life, after rent decontrol threatened to make it a good deal more expensive to continue renting our flat in Swan Court. In any event, we felt the children needed a garden to play in.
Our new house had seen better days. Though it was structurally sound, the previous owner had not been able to maintain it properly. There was no central heating, and the one and a half acres of garden were heavily overgrown. But I enjoyed setting to work to improve things. In particular I bubbled with enthusiasm for the garden. I had always wanted one, but when my parents finally moved to a house with quite a large garden — very long but narrow — I was no longer living at home. So the garden at ‘Dormers’ was my first real opportunity to don thick gardening gloves and rip out brambles, trundle barrows of leaf-mould from the nearby wood to improve the soil, and plant out flower beds. I read up on the requirements of azaleas, rhododendrons and dahlias. Luckily, in Bertie Blatch I had a constituency chairman who doubled as horticulturist: but for all his tips my roses never quite resembled his.
For the twins, ‘Dormers’ was a seventh heaven. There was the new experience of their own garden, neighbours with children and all the excitement of a wood to walk in — though not alone. The house was part of an estate, so there was no through-traffic and it was safe for the children. I eliminated right at the beginning the dreadful possibility of their falling in the pond by having it filled with earth and turned into a rose bed.
Mark and Carol were six when I became an MP, old enough to get into plenty of trouble if not firmly handled. Nor was Denis at home as much as he would have liked, since his job took him abroad a good deal. Because my parliamentary duties meant that I was not always back before the twins went to bed, I insisted on full family attendance at breakfast. We also had the advantage of the long parliamentary recess and indeed the long parliamentary weekends. But I owe a debt of gratitude to Barbara, the children’s nanny at ‘Dormers’ until she married a local horticulturist who advised me on the garden — and to Abby who replaced her and who in due course became a close family friend. They kept the children in order and I always telephoned from the House shortly before six each evening to see that all was well and to give the children a chance to tell me that it wasn’t.
I had learned from my mother the importance of making every house a home. In particular, I insisted on a warm kitchen, large enough to eat in, as its heart. Although I like somewhere to be clean and tidy, I have no taste for austerity for its own sake. A lived-in house should be both comfortable and attractively furnished — a combination which is less difficult and less expensive than is sometimes thought. Like my mother, I favoured mahogany furniture. And since nothing looks better on a dark mahogany table than silver, Denis and I started to build up a modest collection for a table service.