To the Life - A Reminiscence with Charles Moore 24/3/23

 

A larger, more secular congregation than usual was shepherded into St. Thomas’s Church to hear the distinguished journalist, editor and author Charles Moore discuss his experiences in the writing of his acclaimed, prize-winning, 3-volume authorised biography of Margaret Thatcher.  A religious setting may have been particularly apposite for a subject who had been styled “The Blessed Margaret Thatcher, the Leaderene”, by the playfully camp, intellectually adroit, if arguably tactless Norman St. John – Stevas.  Given the political alignment of the publications with which our speaker has been associated, audience members attuned to the season’s Scriptural offerings might have speculated on whether they would be hearing “a disciple’s tongue”.  In 1997, while editing the “Daily Telegraph”, Moore was invited to write the authorised biography of the former Prime Minister, an unsought, if attractive, offer for which he had to set aside his verdict on political biographies as being generally “stodgy”.   He did express an admiration for Boswell’s “Life of Johnson”, particularly from the point where the Great Lexicographer first encounters his amanuensis.

The plethora of source material was an early problem.  Mrs. T. herself was still alive and Charles felt that knowing and being able to meet with his subject was on balance an advantage.  In 1990 she had “written her own memoirs” in conversation with a series of ghost writers which were unhelpful and were worryingly indicative of a disorganised mind.  The subject’s personal and Government papers were also available for study and the most useful insights into the workings of the former Premier’s mind came from her own notes and under- linings on the official documents.  Lady Thatcher did not seem to understand the fact gathering nature of the historical interview, seeing it more in terms of a continuation of political combat.  In addition, she was latterly in evident cognitive decline and could not be considered an altogether reliable witness.  There were numerous media interviews, newspaper articles and a host of living oral sources to be scrutinised.  Civil servants proved most useful among this group in that they had minds trained to remember detail while politicians, notably Michael Heseltine, were rather cavalier in handling facts.  An exception was John Major whom this biographer felt demonstrated a “natural” civil servant’s mind-set.  So numerous were the oral sources that the interviews with over 500 of them in North America had to be contracted out to an assistant.

This wealth of material created a challenge when it came to building a narrative “architecture” but our speaker laid down some useful ground rules; hold a firm chronological line and avoid the distraction of “flashbacks”, eschew partisanship and antagonism, try to understand the subject’s motivation and to move as close as you can to the well springs of their thought and action.  Baron Moore detected a discernible difference between the public and private Margaret Thatchers.  While the relative contributions of Marxism and Methodism to the genealogy of the Labour Party remain a steady staple of political debate, our visitor felt that Margaret Roberts’ father’s auxiliary vocation as a Methodist lay preacher was crucial in engendering a “work hard, make money and donate some of it” mentality in his offspring.  Margaret emerged from the local grammar school with a place at Oxford studying Science, both unusual destinations for a woman at that time.  The only instance when the interviewee’s veracity came into question was on the topic of boyfriends: - the party line was that the far from handsome Denis was the only one but our intrepid representative of what Denis, in his “Private Eye” incarnation as the author of the “dear Bill” letters, would have termed “the reptiles of the press” unearthed the detail that his subject was managing to entertain 3 swains concurrently before Denis swam into her ken. 

 The congregation filed out, uplifted by an inspiring sermon and fortified by the Final Blessing, but possibly divided into true votaries with heads bowed in silent prayer for the canonisation of Blessed Margaret and perennial sceptics wondering whatever happened to that famous Downing St. Mission Statement from the prayer of St. Francis: -

Where there is discord, may we bring harmony.

Where there is despair, may we bring hope.