Antique shops used to cast a dangerous spell over me. Though keeping my sights prudently low and avoiding the grand establishments where, even in those days, price digits seemed to multiply alarmingly, I would spend spare moments from shopping or political work to see what ‘finds’ were on offer. Antique (or reproduction) furniture continued to be a favourite because I felt it was useful and not just attractive. When I lost a sapphire scarf pin one Sunday in Richmond Park — Denis had brought the stones back with him from a business trip in Ceylon — I used the insurance money to buy an antique piece to serve as a cocktail cabinet. Denis thought that I should have bought some more jewellery, but I was annoyed with myself: ‘at least I can’t lose a cocktail cabinet in Richmond Park,’ I told him. And so our house gradually acquired its contents.
It did not, however, acquire many pictures. Apart from a few prints and the addition (in later years) of several drawings and portraits, Denis and I felt that good paintings — and there was no point in hanging bad ones — were just too expensive. Instead, I began to collect porcelain. Porcelain dishes on the walls and figures in display cabinets provided our rooms with plenty of colour, and somehow the purchase of individual pieces always seemed less of an extravagance. I bought my first pieces of Crown Derby at Frinton when we were visiting my sister Muriel and her husband on their farm. On one occasion after an evening’s canvassing in Finchley I discovered that one of our Branch Chairmen had her own impressive little collection that showed her impeccable taste. From then on she would tell me about anything she saw that she thought I would like.
My childhood experiences in Grantham had convinced me that the best way to make a cheerful home is to ensure it is busy and active. This was not difficult. My own life was full to overflowing. Before I became an MP there had been both the law and my search for a parliamentary seat to combine with my duties as wife and mother. Once I was elected the pace was even more hectic. We had a daily help in to do most of the regular housework, but there were some things which I insisted on doing myself. Whatever time the House rose, even in the early hours of the morning, I would drive back to Farnborough so as to be ready to prepare breakfast for Denis and the family — and to grab some fruit and a cup of coffee for myself. I would then take one or both of the twins and sometimes another local child off to their schools — we had a team of mothers who shared out the duties between us. Then I would usually do some shopping before driving the forty-five minutes to Westminster where the House commenced its sitting at 2.30 p.m.
Although there were often constituency duties, the weekends provided the opportunity to sort out the house and usually to do a large bake, just as we had done at home in Grantham. In the summer months Denis and I and the children would work — or in their case play at working — in the garden. But on Saturdays in the rugby season Denis would probably be refereeing or watching a match — an arrangement which from the earliest days of our marriage had been solemnly set down in tablets of stone. Sometimes if he was refereeing an important game I would go along as well, though my concentration on the game was frequently disturbed by the less than complimentary remarks which English crowds are inclined to exchange about the conduct of referees. On Sundays we took the twins to the Family Service at the Farnborough parish church. Denis was an Anglican, but we both felt that it would be confusing for the children if we did not attend the same church. The fact that our local church was Low Church made it easier for the Methodist in me to make the transition. Anyway, John Wesley regarded himself as a member of the Church of England to his dying day. I did not feel that any great theological divide had been crossed.
Weekends, therefore, provided me with an invaluable and invigorating tonic. So did family holidays. I remembered what I had enjoyed — and not enjoyed — about my own holidays at Skegness. My conclusion was that for young children nothing beats buckets and spades and plenty of activity. So we used to take a house on the Sussex coast for a month right by the side of the beach, and there always seemed to be other families with small children nearby. Later we went regularly to a family hotel at Seaview on the Isle of Wight or rented a flat in the village. Crossing the Solent by ferry seemed a great adventure to the children who, like all twins, had a degree of (usually) playful rivalry. On the way down to the coast in the car we always passed through a place called ‘Four Marks’. I was never able to answer Mark’s question about who these four were. Nor could I think up a satisfactory response to Carol who thought that it was all unfair and that there should also be a ‘Four Carols’. Not to be outdone, Mark pointed out that it was no less unfair that Christmas carols had no male equivalent.
In 1960 we had planned to take the children abroad for the summer holidays to Brittany. But at the last moment Mark caught chickenpox and to everyone’s great disappointment the trip had to be cancelled. To compensate, still more adventurously, we decided to go skiing at Lenzerheide in Switzerland at Christmas. None of us had ever skied before, so we joined a ski club in Sloane Square and took a course in skiing from Lillywhites before we went. The holiday was a great success, and we went back to the same hotel year after year. I loved the scenery and the exercise. And I loved the hot chocolate and pastries afterwards even more.
It is a cliché, but no less true for all that, that in family life you have to take the rough with the smooth. Knowing that you have a family to turn to is a great strength in politics, but the other side is one’s emotional vulnerability to their suffering. I was always worried about Mark, who at that time seemed to catch every germ that was going, including pneumonia one winter at Lenzerheide. One of the worst days of my life was when it became clear that he had appendicitis and I had to rush him to the nearby hospital. I spent so much time with him in the weeks which followed that I began to worry that Carol might feel left out. So I bought her a magnificent teddy bear which was christened Humphrey. Whatever Carol thought of her new friend, I became very attached to him, and indeed brought him with me to Downing Street. Only later did he sadly disintegrate when, dismayed by his grubby looks, I tried to wash him. ‘Sic transit gloria Humphri’.
It is hard to know whether one worries more about one’s children when they are within reach or far away. I wanted the twins to be at home when they were young, though I was reconciled to their going to boarding school later. Unfortunately, the nearby day school to which Mark went had to close in 1961, and Denis persuaded me that it was best that he should go to Belmont Preparatory School. At least Belmont was just on the edge of Finchley, so I could take him out to lunch. Also I knew he was not too far away in case of emergencies. But then, of course, not to be left out, Carol decided that she wanted to go to boarding school as well, and did so two years later. The house seemed empty without them.
By now there was another emptiness in my life which could never be filled, and that was the loss of my mother, who died in 1960. She had been a great rock of family stability. She managed the household, stepped in to run the shop when necessary, entertained, supported my father in his public life and as Mayoress, did a great deal of voluntary social work for the church, displayed a series of practical domestic talents such as dressmaking and was never heard to complain. Like many people who live for others, she made possible all that her husband and daughters did. Her life had not been an easy one. Although in later years I would speak more readily of my father’s political influence on me, it was from my mother that I inherited the ability to organize and combine so many different duties of an active life. Her death was a great shock, even though it had not been entirely unexpected. We were all staying with my sister’s family in Essex when my mother fell ilclass="underline" Denis and I drove her back to Grantham for an emergency operation. But she was never really well again, and died a few months later. Even young children have a keen sense of family grief. After my mother’s funeral, my father came back to stay with us for a while at ‘Dormers’. That evening when I turned back the coverlet of his bed, I found a little note from Mark on the pillow: ‘Dear Grandad, I’m so sorry Granny died.’ It was heartbreaking.