Margaret Thatcher: Volume One: The Grocer’s Daughter: 1 - Softcover

Campbell, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099516764 ISBN 13: 9780099516767

Publisher: Vintage, 2007

Synopsis

When Margaret Thatcher unexpectedly emerged to challenge Edward Heath for the Conservative Party leadership in 1975, the public knew her only as the archetypal Home Counties Tory Lady, more famous for her hats than for any outstanding talent: she had a rich businessman husband, sent her children to the most expensive private schools and sat in Parliament for Finchley.

Yet almost overnight she reinvented herself. Journalists who set out to discover where she came from were amazed to find that she had grown up above a grocer's shop in Grantham. Within weeks of her becoming Tory leader an entirely new image was in place, based around the now famous corner shop beside the Great North Road; the strict Methodist upbringing; and her father, who taught her the 'Victorian values' which were the foundations of her subsequent career.

In the first volume of the first full-scale biography of Margaret Thatcher since her fall from power - and the first thoroughly to explore her early life - John Campbell re-examines the mythology and suggests a more complex reality behind the idealised picture accepted by Lady Thatcher's early biographers. He portrays an ambitious and determined woman ruthlessly distancing herself from her roots, until the moment in 1975 when they suddenly became a political asset.

About this title

Review:

Love her or hate her, there is no escaping the impact that Margaret Thatcher has made upon post-war British Politics. The 1980s are indelibly marked as the Thatcher years, and her rise from Grantham grocer's daughter to Finchley MP in 1959, Leader of the Conservative Party by 1975, and Prime Minister by 1979 was as tenacious as it was controversial. Since being ousted from power, biographers have been busy reassessing her legacy. By far the most distinguished account to date is John Campbell's Margaret Thatcher. Volume One: The Grocer's Daughter. Campbell's credentials for the job are impeccable, having already written the acclaimed biography of Thatcher's great rival, Edward Heath, winner of the 1994 NCR Book Award. As he explains from the outset, this is not an authorised biography, but Thatcher's office made no attempt to prevent the reconstruction of Thatcher's life from her birth in Grantham to her entry into Downing Street. This is a blessing, as Campbell's immensely readable and even-handed book challenges the idealised myth of Thatcher's early life and indoctrination into the "Victorian values" of her Methodist father Alderman Roberts. According to Campbell, Thatcher reinvented herself as a wealthy Home Counties lady, through her difficult years at Oxford, marriage to Denis, and sexist responses from her party throughout her early years in Opposition. However, as her status as a "conviction politician" grew, and with the General Election of 1979 looming, she radically changed her image: "In place of the Home Counties Tory lady in a stripy hat, married to a rich husband, whose children had attended the most expensive private schools, she forced the media to redefine her as a battling meritocrat who had raised herself by hard work from a humble provincial background." Campbell's story is always compelling, his research meticulous, and his sweep of the political skulduggery of the 60s and 70s masterful. Margaret Thatcher is an absorbing story of the creation of a modern political myth. --Jerry Brotton

Review:

"The best book yet written about Lady Thatcher" (Daily Telegraph)

"A winner. Whatever your views on the grocer's daughter, I defy you not to enjoy it" (Daily Mail)

"'A triumph'" (Spectator) --Spectator

"'A superbly researched biography... unlike so many others is neither hagiography nor hatchet-job, and probably gets closer to the truth than any... magnificently told'" (Sunday Express) --Sunday Express

"'A fascinating account... Campbell's research is as exhaustive as it is meticulous'" (Observer) --Observer

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0099516764
• ISBN 13: 9780099516767
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 528