My wife, a feminist well to the left of centre, made me watch the Thatcher 'faction' last night. It was surprisingly good, with a performance both winsome and convincing by the main girl.
Naturally she was interested when the rather common-sounding Denis offered her a lift to London in his Jag, later referred to jovially as 'the old tart trap'. But did he really have a red XK150 drophead?
The Denis in the theatre last night was in paint and solvents, and doing well. No mention of his directorship of Burmah-Castrol in various guises, which built in the sixties one of the best low-key modern buildings in London, an elegant green glass cube of middling proportions, similar in size to those around it, in the Marylebone Road more or less opposite the Town Hall. If only there were more like that.
Did Denis become an oil man only after Mrs T became an MP? I'm not suggesting anything dodgy of course. Nothing of that sort would ever be apparent with proper operators, or even necessary really.
|
I don't know about the car, but suspect he did.
Interrupted only by the war (mentioned in dispatches twice, got MBE) he worked for and then ran the Thatcher family paint/preservatives business which he later sold to Castrol - thus gaining a seat on the Board. He must have been good at his work as he remained on the Board when it became Burmah-Castrol. He was also involved in several other companies in allied fields, including Halfords.
I always felt that the reason he was such a good partner for his wife was because he was a high achiever in his own right.
|
Thanks deepwith. I had forgotten (or never taken in) the fact that Denis started with an inherited business.
Yes, he was a high achiever, but of a very different sort from his wife. He let her get on with it.
People used to denounce Mrs T in immoderate terms as a dictator and 'fascist'. Just as well for them by all accounts that she was the politician and not her husband. That might have given them something to complain about.
:o}
|
This thread interested me, so I googled Dennis Thatcher. Didn't find much about an old Jag, but did find a tremendous speech he was supposed to have made
he was apparently not one for speaking publicy. After the first Gulf War Margaret was at a ceremony in the States and recieved the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
George Bush senior made a speech. Mrs Thatcher made a speech, Barbara Bush made a speech and then turned and introduced Dennis.
He apparently stood up and said "As Julius Caesar said on entering Cleopatra's tent for the first time,'I didn't come here to talk'".....and then he sat down.
|
Family inheritance can be quite unkind - I wonder if John Major would have been considered so ineffectual if his family company had produced paint rather than gnomes?
|
If he didn't, he should have to fit with the image most of us have of him!
As best man at my brother's [US] pre-wedding dinner which is when they do things like this over there apparently, following a long, educated, erudite speech from my father [near 25 minutes], I stood up only to say "women prefer silent men; they think they are listening", and abandoned my planned speech.
|
|