Oh What A Time... - #37 Prime Ministers (Part 1)

Episode Date: April 14, 2024

This week on the show we’re taking a trip to 10 Downing Street to analyse Prime Ministers from yonder. We’ll be taking a look at Lloyd George, Margaret Thatcher, Ramsey MacDonald and the full timers will this week get their bonus 4th part on Robert Walpole (who was not, I repeat NOT, the world’s tallest man). On that note, is it possible to look 22 years old when you’re nearly 9ft? And Elis’ mum would regularly walk two miles to school when she was 4 years old; do you know anyone who can beat that record? To touch on this or anything else, you can get in touch with the show via [e-mail] If you're impatient and want both parts in one lovely go next time plus a whole lot more(!), why not treat yourself and become an Oh What A Time: FULL TIMER? In exchange for your £4.99 per month to support the show, you'll get: - the 4th part of every episode and ad-free listening - episodes a week ahead of everyone else - a bonus episode every month - And first dibs on any live show tickets Subscriptions are available via AnotherSlice, Apple and Spotify. For all the links head to: ohwhatatime.com You can also follow us on:  X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepod And Instagram at @ohwhatatimepod Aaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice? Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk). We'll see you next week! Chris, Elis and Tom x Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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where we offer career programs purpose-built for you. Visit continue.yorku.ca. Hello and welcome to Oh What A Time, the history podcast that tries to decide if the past was actually good, actually nice and fine. And I wouldn't have minded it. Can I shock you? I never actually thought it was fine and i wouldn't have minded it i'm can i shock you i never actually thought it was fine and i would have thrived back then back when we were a proper country not like now we used to leave our front door open we used to play in the streets how old your kids chris one and four when mum was five she was walking to school on her own and it was two miles. Once again, a proper country. Yeah.

Not like now, all this woke nonsense that you can't walk to school when you're two years old. Yeah, you can't walk to school when you're down a country lane at 7am when you're four. When you can't have a Swiss army knife when you're two. Yeah. Why did everyone get so woke? Anyway, I'm Ellis James. I'm Chris Gull. And I'm Tom

Crane. And each week on this show, we will be looking at a new historical subject. And today, we're going to be discussing those pesky prime ministers. Oh, the big one. The big one. Yeah, exactly. What a collection we've got for you today. Thatcher, Lloyd George, Ramsay MacDonald, and the over time full-time full-timers, congratulations, you're getting Robert Walpole. Who no one called Bobby Walpole. And I thought... Such a shame, isn't it?

For a second, I thought that was the name of the world's tallest ever man. But Ellis, you knew it. Can I do my joke in that case? Yeah, go on then. I can do my joke that I said before we start recording. I think you'll find that's Robert Beanpole. And neither of them laughed and they were wrong because that's good stuff.

It's, I don't know, it's pretty kind of aimed at the under 10s, that joke. Do you know what I will say about that joke, Crane? That is like the sort of stuff you write. Yeah, and I'm fine. That does feel like it's come from your oeuvre. Long may it continue. Tallest person ever was Robert Wadlow. Okay, there we go.

Just to clarify. Before anyone reaches for their phone to Google it, the tallest person ever was Robert Wadlow, not Robert Beanpole, as Tom suggested. And do you have how hard, just out of interest, how tall was Robert Wadlow? Have you got that in front of you, Al? Let's find out.

Do you know what? He was about a quarter of an inch shorter than nine foot from what I remember. Whoa! And I think he was still growing when he died. He was eight foot 11.1 inches. 272 centimetres. He was 22.

22! That's incredible. There's something about the... I've been to like a Ripley's Believe It or Not. They've got like a statue of Robert Wadlow. Yep. Well, he's actually... He's outside the front of Ripley's's Believe or Not, if I'm correct.

I think that's the thing that tempts you in. He doesn't look like a 22-year-old, I'll say that. And maybe it could be the way he dresses. By the time he graduated

from school, he was 8 foot 4. Okay, yeah. I think it's hard, to be fair to him, it's hard to look 22 when you're 9 foot tall, isn't it?

I think that's a given. If you're 9 foot, then it's hard to look sort of... You know, you wouldn't need ID, I don't think? I think that's a given. If you're nine foot, then it's hard to look sort of, you know, you wouldn't need ID, I don't think. I don't think you'd get to the bar and they go, mate, have you got your driving licence?

They'll give you a pint. But like, also, you don't continue to grow as you get older. So like Danny DeVito doesn't look young because he's short. No one looks at Joe Pesci and goes,

what is he, 13? 14? Do you think they kept that thing going at home where you have the little lines on the side of the door to show where you're growing as a child? Imagine constantly all the way up the doorframe. Yeah, we've got that downstairs. But the gaps, it'd be like October and November

and there'd be like a five-inch gap or something. Well, good. Yeah. Good on him. Good on him. He, uh. Good on him. Clothes. Like.

Yep. You can't buy anything off the peg. Not even pants. Yeah. He must have had one pair of trousers that were specially made. Yeah. And shoes. Yeah.

Yeah. And shoes. And shoes. Yeah. And shoes. And he can't borrow any clothes. And I was like, oh, I've got a party actually on the weekend and I need to look quite smart.

Can I borrow a jacket? No, because you're 8 foot 11. That's such a good point. Hand-me-downs would have stopped around about three months in. His 18-year-old brother would no longer have anything to give him when he'd hit four months old once he was toddling. Tell you what,

though, Robert Wadlow could have done. I would have let him walk to school when he was two because he would have looked 16. Also, Chris,

it would have been one stride and he'd have been there to think. Open the gate, one step, I'm at school. It's not that stressful,

is it? Right. Shall we move on? You'd have absolutely bossed the 100 metres. It's like three bases. Hurdles is the big one. Yeah. Like nothing.

What is the point? You could do three at a time probably, couldn't you? But the problem is his feet are so long that would there be enough gap between the hurdles just to fit his feet in? Oh, that's interesting. So he'd have to go sideways. He'd have to stand side on and sidestep down the...

I mean, there are ways of sort of overcoming. I once sat on the same table at a charity do as Martin Bayfield, the rugby player. And he's six foot ten. Right. So that's pretty... And I just... He's a lovely bloke. But as I shook his hand and my hand looked like a kind of baby's hand,

I thought, we've got different lives. We've got very different skills. Yeah. Well, we both know, and you do as well, Chris. We know Greg Davies. He's 6'8". I love him. And it's always nice to see him.

But every time I see him, I am surprised by that. He's a big guy. I forget every time in between, despite the fact I've met him loads of times. First time I saw Greg Davies in real life, I did like Sam Neill in Jurassic Park when he sees the Broncosaurus and he just tries to grab his glasses and pulls them off shaking. What? You crazy bastards, you actually did it.

Right. Shall we crack on into some actual history? Should we do that? Yeah. Yes. And before that, of course, it has to be content from our listeners, our lovely Oh What A Time fans. I can say that. They're fans.

If you're emailing the show, you're a fan of the show, I'd like to think. And if you're not and your email suggests you hate the show, we won't read it out. This is from, let me just find the name of this chap. This is from Benjamin Stone. Okay, Benjamin Stone has sent us an email with the title that we all love to read, One Day Time Machine. Should we hear the jingle? We haven't heard the jingle in a while.

Play the jingle. It's the one day time machine. It's the one day time machine. It's the one day time machine. It's the one day time machine. There you go. Okay, Benjamin says says i'd like to go back i think this is quite an interesting way of viewing actually i'd like to go back as the most minor character who can make the most difference to history so i would take over the body of the loudest anglo-saxon foot soldier at the battle of hastings

and when the normans retreated before coming back after the line charged and they were broken up So you'd stop the Norman conquest? and the world. Imagine history without Henry VIII, the Hundred Years' War, unification and all the other capers we've been up to in the past millennium. There's a reason for this, okay? So you'd stop the Norman conquest? Yes, exactly. His goal here is to stop the British Empire adopting the spicy and exotic foods from around the world that really flare up my IBS and return us

to a more traditional turnip-based diet. Making my visits to the Privy, nice use, a soothing release instead of the burning torture I have to endure daily. Love the show. Keep up the good work, Ben. Interesting.

That's an interesting way of viewing the world. A, playing a minor part to change the course of history, and B, having a really particular reason to do it. In his case, the IBS. I also like the idea of trying to change a thousand years of history with just one shout yeah one change changing the way we eat all sorts of stuff yes yeah i like that i wonder what like but i reckon the further you go back the more impact you could have maybe like the biggest change you could make would maybe be going like to the

side of the ocean as the first forms crawl onto the land just booting them back in the sea just imagine what imagine imagine the change that would make stop in evolution with one into the sea just booting the jellyfish that are trying to grow legs back into the sea you are aware how much coastline there is on Earth. Yeah, good point. Yeah, I'm bringing you back with me. Are you planning on covering all of that? I'm taking you back with me.

Okay, fair. And wearing particularly big shoes. You can do like one shore and one kick. I'm bringing you and Robert Walpole. No, Robert Rodlow. I brought the wrong one. That reminds me of when I was very drunk in Carmartholme when I was about 18.

Llan Steffan Castle, which is about, I don't know, 10 miles out of town. We considered getting a can of spray paint and spray painting on the walls of the castle, Normaniad Mas, which is Welsh for Norman's Out. That's really funny. And I wish, obviously, you can't graffiti thousand-year-old kisses, but it would have been so funny.

That is really funny. As if you're still pissed off at the Normans, like 900 years later. Thank you very much, Ben, for getting in contact and telling us about your loud Norman plans. If you want to get in contact with the show, you can. There's many ways to do it. This guy's going to tell you how. All right, you horrible lot.

Here's how you can stay in touch with the show. You can email us at hello at oh, what a time dot com. And you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at oh, what a time pod. Now clear off. Breaking news coming in from Bet365, where every nail biting overtime win, breakaway, pick six, three point shot, underdog win, Overtime win, breakaway, pick six, three-point shot, underdog win, buzzer beater, shootout, walk-off, and absolutely every play in between is amazing. From football to basketball and hockey to baseball, whatever the moment, it's never ordinary at Bet365. Must be 19 or older, Ontario only.

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And the first part you're going to get right now is Margaret Thatcher. I've become, in older age, a bit obsessed with the 80s. Yeah, me too. And in particular, kind of Margaret Thatcher. And I've definitely, I don't know if you feel like this, Al, but I've definitely been guilty of thinking about Thatcher. Like, even though I lived it, I was just a child of the 80s 80s I don't really remember it but I look back on Thatcher's like ancient history and actually like I think there's a big anniversary isn't it with the minor strikes

and you realize like wow this is still the impact yeah the scars from these Thatcher years are still absolutely enormous so although it feels like ancient history, this is still something that's going on now. It feels much more modern than 70s, I think. Yeah. I, too, am also fascinated by the 80s. I studied the 80s at university as part of my politics and history degree. And we used to have our tea in front of the six o'clock news. Did you? So actually, I vividly remember a lot of the really big things. I've got very vague memories of the miners' strike, which is 84, 85. But I also have very vivid memories of

things like Nigel Lawson being Chancellor and Douglas Heard and people like that. And I remember the end of her tenure as Prime Minister as well. From what age were you sat? As a family, you would sit and watch the news from a very early age. We had a telly on in the kitchen and our

tea used to coincide with it. So my parents were watching it. I found it really interesting from a very young age. So you have an alfabeti spaghetti and a bit of Peter Sissons. Basically exactly that. It was alfabeti spaghetti

and Michael Burke. So would your mum say, if you don't eat your broccoli, there's no Burke tonight. You're not watching Exactly, that is... It was alphabetically getting Michael Burke in my... But yeah, yeah. So would your mum say, if you don't eat your broccoli, there's no Burke tonight. You're not watching Six O'Clock News. So if you don't finish your spaghetti hoops, you're not going to get to watch the Anne Finlay story. If you want your daily dose of Moira Stewart,

get these turkey Twizzlers down here. So we're going to talk about Margaret Thatcher. Here's the first thing I'd like to talk about. Having read a lot of things about Margaret thatcher over the last couple of years and watched all the documentaries her hair yeah is insane how did no one really know how did this know like some figures from history are just so larger than life that they do things that you just accept you don't really they just kind of slip past you another example nelson mandela's shirts the mediba shirt yeah it's outrageous if you met a mate down the pub

and he was wearing a loose fitting silk shirt that was like neon you would go mate what are you what are you doing but that may just be the sartorial styles of south africa chris it might be different to one stead possibly yes well he wouldn't know he'd been in prison for 27 years yeah that's a very good point so it might be the sartorial styles

of the sort of South African prison network or whatever well more recently Chris I would say Donald Trump with his hair falls into that same bracket although we are aware of it

but I've never seen hair like that before ever and no I don't think it will ever be seen again isn't it mad how just some things something like the historical figures can just get away with certain crazy aspects that

objective are you just like wow that's mad her hair yeah it took a lot of work keeping her hair like that she used to have loads of hair appointments because you don't just wake up and look like margaret thatcher you actually took a lot of maintenance yeah i was going to say she's not doing that herself surely she needs help to maintain it's sort of like it's quite round isn't it but it's not there's no twirls you could say the lady's not for curling in a way couldn't you thomas crane she was and then you move on after you said that i think yeah last night i had due to kids and travel i had three or three or four and a half no three and a half hours sleep right and

as we all know thatcher would do that regularly yeah even today i feel exhausted like thatcher was known for her remarkable energy and her devotion to work absolute workhorse workaholic but did you know this a historian daryl was keen to point out to me this is something i hadn't read anywhere really that she was receiving male hormones like testosterone to boost her stamina she told a journalist as well she did take occasionally take vitamin B supplements and more often vitamin C. Yeah, I knew about them. But she was having regular injections of B12

into her buttocks and was in receipt of hormone replacement therapy. Well, I knew about the B12 in the buttocks because when I was at university, when I was doing my MA, in fact, I'd left it too late and I was having to subsist on like four hours of sleep a night to try and get it finished in fact. I'd left it too late and I was having to subsist on like four hours of sleep a night

to try and get it finished in time. I remember telling myself, you know, come on, you're 21 or 22, whatever I was. I'm in the prime of life. I should be able to handle this. Why do I feel so knackered? Thatcher could do it.

And then after I'd handed it in, looking like death, a few months later, I read that she was having these injections and I felt completely cheated. I was like, oh, oh jeez well if i'd known i'd have had the bloody injections in my buttocks as well then but that does that does speak to whatever you think of her a dedication to her work doesn't it that you're willing to take injections in your buttocks to make yourself as sort of productive and efficient i think it's safe to assume we're all tired dads.

We're busy people. But none of us are currently having buttock injections to make sure that we're producing top podcasts. Are we? Unless I've completely misunderstood how much you're... I really hope it doesn't come up now that we've all been on the juice. Like this great podcasting stuff we're turning out is actually... Because we're packed full of chemicals that make us brilliantly funny.

Do you know what, though? With her being a workaholic, I like reading biographies of prime ministers and they're all to an extent, or certainly until recently, were workaholics. And when I read about some of the more recent ones who were quite happy to chillax a bit, I do feel pretty miffed at that actually

if you've got the biggest job and most important job in britain i do expect you to put the hours in that's the kind of thing like this is a thing in the past that i definitely felt this as a kid that the people who were in politics and in government were the best people we could get for those jobs and like when you're thinking about like Margaret Thatcher or some of the historic prime ministers, regardless of what you think of their politics, they were the best suited people to do that job because they would work the hardest at it.

Yes. Whereas now politics is, doesn't, doesn't feel like that. Am I getting old? Is this just, this is what everyone thinks. Don't coppers look young these days,

Chris. I've said so, you can't arrest me. You're about nine. getting old is this just this is what everyone thinks don't coppers look young these days chris i've said so you can't arrest me you're about nine and i said no i'm a bobby on the beat i am old enough to arrest you i said i don't believe that when i see it we never used to lock the front door we used to leave all the windows open with all our jewels hanging out the front of our house. We'd go on holiday for seven weeks, come back, they'd all still be there. We didn't even have a house. We'd just sit there on a sofa on the front lawn with no walls protecting us around us. I didn't know what to take.

We were a proper country then. We were a proper country. Thatcher's diet, skimmed milk, an absence of absence of sugar no biscuits she would have for breakfast black coffee a piece of fruit soup at lunchtime wow as she explained on bbc's today program in 1985 i was born fit i don't have a special diet as you get older you somehow develop both a philosophy and a stamina which perhaps the young don't have maybe i've just got both she would go to sleep sleep on four or five hours of sleep per night

that's remarkable do you know what Thomas Crane-esque do you know what Tom and I work on Fancy Football League and the writers room on that show

I love every second of that show and I love everyone involved with it I love working with the cast and the crew but the amount of biscuits and chocolate

we get through is absolutely titanic. And it is effectively a pathway to diabetes. And so I really admire. If you could not eat biscuits, I'm very impressed with that. Well, Ellis, so much that you bring in your own little nut supply in a way to sort of battle against that. Yeah, because I will be dead

by series three if we carry on like this I just can't you know what you're called the pistachio boy do you know that you probably haven't heard that we'll go into corners

and we'll have a little giggle the pistachio boy do impressions of you and under all those that nut selection is some B12 injections to get you through this another thing to think about

with Thatcher that I was thinking was that Thatcher isn't her, like that's her husband's name. She was born Margaret Roberts. Interesting. Drew up famously as the daughter of a green grocer

in Grantham in Lincolnshire. Of course Thatcher, Dennis Thatcher. That's Thatcher's name. Yep. But Thatcher is so iconic as a kind of a historical figure. You kind of forget

that she was born actually Margaret Roberts. A really impactful thing happened to her when she was young which was that her dad was a local politician of some standing alf roberts and he lost his seat on the council following labor's victory there in the early 50s and net thatcher never forgave the party for what she felt should they had done to her dad and she's actually an amazing interview where she is asked about her dad in the moment where he lost his seat on the council and she starts welling up starts getting really emotional just talking about her dad losing his seat and there's other things I've read as well about she loved her loved her

dad but actually got consumed by the kind of the responsibility of being prime minister and by being a member of parliament although she loved him she kind of didn't go visit him as much as others felt she perhaps should have. And she had a really interesting relationship with her mum, which I kind of understand, given her character. She didn't have a lot of love for her mother, Beatrice. Thatcher once said,

after I was 15, we had nothing more to say to each other. Wow. That's what she said about her mum. Wow. Yeah. She seems as well, there's a great documentary about her mum. Yeah. She seems as well, there's a great documentary

about her life on BBC4 and in it they explain that she had, she loved her son, Mark, but didn't really care for the daughter, Carol. What? Did she admit to that? No. No, she never admitted.

People around her observed her. She was like obsessed with her son but kind of didn't really care for the daughter. There's anecdotes that when she was living in 10 Down Street, if people would come over for a meeting, she would hide Carol in the cupboard, the daughter. Oh my God.

Right. And there's stories of people hearing rustling in the cupboard, opening up and then Mark would go, oh, so that's Carol in the Thasher. I just moved her out of the way so we could have this meeting. How do you get away with that? Is that Russian spies? No, it's Carol again.

If people came round to the house and as you said, where are the kids? And I said, I've hidden them. They're in the cupboard. She would leave me. Yeah, because everything's so woke now. No, technically, Ellis, you'd actually be saying no. Because we're not a proper country anymore.

It would be, you know, our daughter's in the cupboard. Oh, yeah, yeah, my son is. He's allowed to do whatever he wants around the house. It's our daughter's in the cupboard. That's remarkable. Wow. Need to have a meeting, pop the door in the cupboard. Yeah. So the liberal traits inherited from the Rump Ferry were in evidence in Thatcher.

So, yeah, her dad was a liberal. And she inherited some of those traits in the early Thatcher years in Parliament, in the 50s and 60s. She voted in favour of progressive legislation, including the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality in England and Wales, and the introduction of legal abortions, both in 1967. But it was a conservative politics that she was always devoted, even when a student at Oxford in the 1940s. It's funny how many prime ministers come from Oxford and Cambridge, isn't it? Yeah. Well, she became more extreme as she carried on during her time as prime minister.

And also what she was doing, because she'd, for instance, when it came to things like trade union legislation, the Conservatives under Edward Heath, I think, I'm remembering this from my degree, had tried to do it all in one go. And they'd lost the vote in the Commons. And it had been, you know, there were people went on strike. It was the Industrial Relations Act of 1971, I think, from what I remember. And she thought, well, I'll do it bit by bit, because then it's much easier to get away with legislation if you do it incrementally if you compare her time say between 79 83 and then between 1987 and 1990 she was more extreme and she

as time wore on so i think her politics did yeah i don't know if her politics changed or if it was it was just being shrewd as a politician that's interesting so she would slowly creep towards her political ideal. Yeah. So the way they reduced the powers of the trade unions in the 80s was by lots of legislation every couple of years or so. Whereas Edward Heath had tried to do it all in one go with the Industrial Relations Act.

Yeah. And do you think people aren't clocking what you're doing as so much? She was able to say that she was democratising the trade unions and that kind of thing. Okay, interesting. So yeah, the 70s is crazy when you study the 70s.

Yeah. What a decade. Margaret Thatcher gets her big break. Ted Heath unexpectedly wins the 1970 general election and she gets appointed Secretary of State for Education

and as we were saying, the 70s, the three-day week, strikes. It is a wild, wild, wild time, the 70s. And I never tire of reading about it or studying it. Like every time there's a documentary about the 70s, I'm like, yes, I'm in, I'm done, let's do it.

And one of her first big acts as Secretary of State for Education, of course, is to remove free milk for kids and i didn't have milk as a consequence margaret thatcher milk snatcher so when was that what what year did that happen why do you think i'm so physically bloody weak the wild wild 70s look look at my wrists but again this is one of those things that you can sit here now in the future like like this feels like distant history but it feels mad to me, free milk. I can imagine people at the time thought about it like it was a right. But now I'm just like, that's milk.

We had it in our primary school. Was it brought back? But we had milk. And I know that because I was milk monitor. That's not a lie. I was. We had a fridge in the corner of the room. And my role was milk monitor.

And we had a little carton of milk every day. I hate to break it to you, but that milk was subsidised. Ah, okay, right. So it did still exist in the classroom, did it? Okay. Milk, Craig, milk existed. She didn't get rid of milk entirely.

She just said... She went around and single-handedly frockled all the cows. Now, there's someone who wouldn't go lips to tea, Margaret Thatcher. And even this morning I had milk in my tea. What do you mean? But I'm not losing my mind.

It can't have just been my primary school that we had milk in, was it? Did you have milk in yours? Well, there was milk in mine, but it would have been subsidised, surely. We had a fridge. We had a milk break. We would drink our little carton of milk and we'd listen to a story. Every day we'd have milk. Yeah.

I think this adds more evidence to the fact that you may have been born in the 1880s. And? And not. I've never had a broken bone, so. I think this adds more evidence to the fact that you may have been born in the 1880s and not. And I've never had a broken bone, so... I break bones all the time. There you go, you do the math. So she becomes Tory leader in 1975 and she becomes the Prime Minister in waiting. And she has...

It's incredible, really. When you watch the footage of her in the early 70s, she's completely different by the time she comes to power in 1979 because she had an entire makeover that transformed the way she looked specifically the way she sounded and she was given she was given assistance by an american television executive gordon reese interesting her original way of talking was described as like shrieking almost and so she developed over time she altered her pitch and her timbre to uh focus focus it more to be less shrill effectively yes she had elocution lessons she had elocution lessons yeah which to be honest probably speaks to a slightly well not

slightly a chauvinistic how you know the idea of wanting to sound more male isn't it that's probably what it is a lower voice a bit of that the idea of all the sort of i don't know what would be the right word way of describing this to compete in a man's world she had to take on some of the especially the 70s i mean how forward thinking is it as well absolutely at that time i think it does probably speak to that it reflects that doesn't it it is mad if you had a woman prime minister in the 70s it feels so advanced there's also the other thing i love about this era is like you see thatcher with her cabinet and she's wearing like an electric blue dress with a hair like a hairpiece and they are the

grayest yes whoever lived like dead behind the eyes just gray grey suits, grey everything. She's like so electric looking. Yeah. She came, of course, as part of this makeover, she had her teeth capped and out of this process came the nickname The Iron Lady, as she was called by a Soviet newspaper, that at first she resisted.

But as her advisor, Gordon Rees, was to tell her, this is a fantastic nickname for you. The Iron Lady. Can you imagine being nicknamed the Iron Bloke? I would be beyond delighted if foreign press referred to me as the Iron Bloke. Well, Iron Man is famously one of the most, it's a top superhero.

Iron Man is a top superhero. He is one of the most it's a top superhero Iron Man is a he's one of the best ones isn't he I don't know how much I know about them but he has a you know he's a billionaire with a nice suit like a metal suit and he can fly around he's one of the good ones so obviously we're just dancing around Thatcher

we can't get into the full detail of her career but there's one thing that I loved which is that so ted heath gives her a big break and she replaces him as tory leader and eventually as prime minister she becomes prime minister ted heath she always tried to bring him back but he just held firm he held that grudge for the rest of his life yeah they barely spoke barely spoke wow there's examples where when she becomes prime minister she goes for a meeting with him and ted heath makes it so curt and short that she has to hide in the kind of waiting room having a cup of tea with his kind of assistant and receptionist

so that it's clear to the press so the press don't realize that he's basically mugged her off and given her like one minute instead of a 20 minute meeting. There's loads of examples of how much Ted Heath bore a grudge. In the end she kind of like that awkwardness maybe that Ted Heath shared and like the ability to kind of make enemies that was really her downfall in the end. She was brought down by her own cabinet she turned them into enemies just as easily as she made enemies of the miners and the greater london council in 1987 she was asked to sum up her legacy and she said i've taken britain in a different direction a direction far more suited to her

character her talents and her ability than that which she had previously trod no post-war consensus no more socialism an independent country in the image of alfred roberts her dad the provincial green grocer and she did transform britain isn't it like i mean the damage she did to communities and the way in which she did it those scars will run deep and continue to run deep for generations but she totally transformed the country and no one has i've never met anyone who has a neutral bad word to say against it but it was a neutral opinion on that yes yeah i know people who absolutely detest her and loathe her and thought her government was terrible or i've certainly met people who think that she's the greatest prime minister britain's ever had no

one's ever on the fence when it comes to Margaret Thatcher, in my experience, because what she did was so polarising and so different. And if you compare Britain in 1990 to Britain in 1979, it's such a different country. When you think of the privatisation of various things, utility companies, for instance, what she did to the power of the trade unions, the miners' strike. There are so many things she changed that, yeah, she's left. People will be studying her for decades to come. Can you believe, like, this is a weird thing to say,

and I've said a few weird things about time on this podcast, but how is 1979 and 1990 like 11 years apart? Oh, yeah, it feels like two different planets. Yeah, that is like, they're so different. If you do know, please let us know at hellowatwhattime.com 1990 is like the Stone Roses. It's Gaza.

And 1979 is ABBA. And 1979 is Three Day Week or it's not far off. Yeah, just the fashion, it all looks really different like the cars look different it's really strange actually i know exactly what you mean the 80s is just so much of a decade i think i could go back 11 years now and find a car that doesn't look too different

to cars now of course my car is older than that no one sees my car and goes, bloody hell! Is that a time machine? In Wales, are there any people that have a kind word to say about Thatcher? In general, are there pockets of people that would have viewed her just out of interest? I mean, they did win seats in the 70s and 80s. And the Tories are, when it comes to the sort of popular vote, probably I think they're still the second biggest party. It's just they would come second

in lots of seats. Yes. So for instance, when you think of the seats running down the west of the country that are often won by Plaid, it's then between Plaid and Labour. But they will come second

in lots of seats but not win like they were absolutely wiped out in like Dicen for instance yeah but yeah

there were you know always there are always people who defended I mean far less so in my experience in the sort of post-industrial areas

yeah absolutely fascinating but I studied it so many times at so many different points in my academic career I feel like I could talk about Margaret Thatcher forever and I find it extraordinary

really that we're still talking about a Prime Minister who left office in 1990 Who replaced Thatcher? Major and then he won the 1992 election The first day, number 10, when he's moving in he's putting all the boxes down he goes to open up a cupboard to see if there's

any space and Margaret Thatcher's daughter's in there So this is the end of part 1 part 2 will be dropping on your devices tomorrow should you want to listen to it all in one glorious big go. You can do that by becoming an Oh What A Time subscriber, a full-timer, and you can do that on ohwhatatime.com.

We'll see you tomorrow. Bye. Thank you.