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

Campbell, John

3.91

107 ratings by Goodreads

9780712674188: Margaret Thatcher: Volume One: The Grocer’s Daughter

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0712674187 ISBN 13: 9780712674188

Publisher: Pimlico, 2001

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When Margaret Thatcher unexpectedly emerged to challenge Edward Heath for the Conservative 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.Yes 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.

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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:

"'A triumph'" (Spectator)

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

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

"Searching and beautifully written" (Geoffrey Howe Independent)

"This biography is a winner. Whatever your views on the grocer's daughter, I defy you not to enjoy it" (Ludovic Kennedy Daily Mail)

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