Neither an angel nor a demon (I'm going to SO regret this !)
Mrs Thatcher. Yes.
I grew up in the Rhondda valley and was a child of the 1970s. The three-day-week. We lit oil lamps in the evening ! The winter of discontent. Jim Callaghan's "Crisis? What crisis?"
I lived in Cardiff during the 1980s. I remember vividly the shock and horror we felt at the murder of a miner by his colleagues because he was on the way to work. A concrete block dropped on his car.
I remember the poll tax riots. The British don't do demonstrations, let alone riots !
So I have very mixed feelings about Margaret Thatcher.
I remember reminding friends in South-East England that there were no conservative MPs in Wales in those days. "We didn't vote her in !" "Neither did we", came the reply. "Well somebody must have !"
On the positive side, she gave us one of our best ever conservative Welsh Secretaries of State - Peter Walker. It is said that she put him in Wales because they didn't get on, and he did very well !
I remember those few days when she went to that summit in Paris and the Conservative Party mounted its coup.
Britain following the Thatcher years did become very focused on money. It seems to me that there was a backlash afterwards so that now it's hard to encourage kids to settle down and think of the future.
However she was a conviction politician and a very brave one.
And a quotable one ! "Now is no time to go wobbly, George." is my favourite.
We probably needed her. Hard and nasty-tasting medicine.
I have heard from several sources that she was a committed Anglican and with evangelical tendencies.
( When Sarkozy was elected I wondered if he would be the French Thatcher, but he didn't have the bottle. )
It's been interesting to see American colleagues voicing their praise of her, and British people more divided. Some laud her, others "curse"...
I suppose I think she was a remarkable woman who shows very clearly that people are both wonderful and tragic.
Made in the image of God, fallen through the influence of Satan.
We are neither angels nor demons. None of us.
I grew up in the Rhondda valley and was a child of the 1970s. The three-day-week. We lit oil lamps in the evening ! The winter of discontent. Jim Callaghan's "Crisis? What crisis?"
I lived in Cardiff during the 1980s. I remember vividly the shock and horror we felt at the murder of a miner by his colleagues because he was on the way to work. A concrete block dropped on his car.
I remember the poll tax riots. The British don't do demonstrations, let alone riots !
So I have very mixed feelings about Margaret Thatcher.
I remember reminding friends in South-East England that there were no conservative MPs in Wales in those days. "We didn't vote her in !" "Neither did we", came the reply. "Well somebody must have !"
On the positive side, she gave us one of our best ever conservative Welsh Secretaries of State - Peter Walker. It is said that she put him in Wales because they didn't get on, and he did very well !
I remember those few days when she went to that summit in Paris and the Conservative Party mounted its coup.
Britain following the Thatcher years did become very focused on money. It seems to me that there was a backlash afterwards so that now it's hard to encourage kids to settle down and think of the future.
However she was a conviction politician and a very brave one.
And a quotable one ! "Now is no time to go wobbly, George." is my favourite.
We probably needed her. Hard and nasty-tasting medicine.
I have heard from several sources that she was a committed Anglican and with evangelical tendencies.
( When Sarkozy was elected I wondered if he would be the French Thatcher, but he didn't have the bottle. )
It's been interesting to see American colleagues voicing their praise of her, and British people more divided. Some laud her, others "curse"...
I suppose I think she was a remarkable woman who shows very clearly that people are both wonderful and tragic.
Made in the image of God, fallen through the influence of Satan.
We are neither angels nor demons. None of us.
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