Milkha Singh & Abdul Khaliq

The girl from Grantham - Margaret Thatcher

It is sometimes difficult to separate people who have achieved great things from the terrible things they may also have done. OJ Simpson, Oscar Pistorious, Margaret Thatcher.

Margaret Thatcher was an iconic woman. Today, where women become icons for having plastic breasts and marrying footballers, Thatcher was an Icon for something substantial rather than ephemeral.
Thatcher showed that no matter where you came from, whatever your class or background, you could achieve what you wanted if you worked hard enough. Even if you didn’t look the part, speak the right way, have the right friends, you could still bypass all these obstacles and achieve the highest levels of success.

The odds were stacked against her. She was the greengrocer’s daughter from Grantham that made it to the highest position in our country.  She had gone where no woman had gone before. Or after.
There was no nepotism. No friends from Eton, no family descendants of a King or Queen, nobody to give her a leg up. It was just one woman and her determination.

One of the reasons I most admire Margaret Thatcher the woman, is that she never used her sexuality to get where she did.  She never slept her way to the top, she never wore short skirts, low cut tops, talked in a seductive manner or flirted with fellow cabinet ministers, and she could have if she wanted to, there were enough sleazy repressed Tory men that would have agreed to a good spanking from Thatcher, even if it was just to say it happened.

She just worked hard and had tremendous self-belief, even though no one could see her in the role.
What made her such a great woman is that she transcended being a woman.  She said what she meant and meant what she said; she didn’t just chat about things as women supposedly do, she actually did things. She became so enduring and so powerful that you forgot this was a woman. She just became Thatcher.

Thatcher, who didn’t just lead Great Britain for 11 years, gather enemies everywhere she went, survive an assassination attempt by the IRA and then turn up for work at 9.30 on the dot, the following morning – I can’t make it to work at 9.30 even when no one’s tried to blow me up the night before – but also a wife and a mother who ran the country on four hours of sleep a night. She was married to Sir Dennis Thatcher for 52 years, longevity unheard of these days. Women that say, “I haven’t got time to work, I have to look after my children, my marriage didn’t work out I was working too much, I can’t do everything!” I say to those women, “Look at Thatcher. She did it, we can all do it”
I NEVER voted for Thatcher. EVER. I have NEVER voted Conservative. I hated her politics and had an impoverished childhood because of her. The anger I feel towards her politics is too unbearable to talk about. But if we look at her just as Margaret Thatcher and where she came from and what she achieved, it is incredible. The girl from Grantham that eventually died at The Ritz Hotel. It’s a long, long way, but she made it and is an inspiration.

I am a woman working in a man’s world. I don’t look the part, have always been underestimated, have constantly been told that I’m never going to get anywhere, that I should give up and do something more ‘respectable’. The men I work with are predominantly, white, middle class, often Oxbridge educated and are all friends with each other. I am an outsider, but of all the things that make me feel like an outsider, being a woman has never been one of them.  I have never been aware of being a woman. I have always just got on with the job. That must be one of the positive effects of growing up under Thatcher.

She didn’t really care what people thought of her, another unwomanly characteristic. If everyone loves you – it’s boring, if everyone hates you – it’s boring. When people are divided that’s when you know you’ve made it.

If there’s one thing worse than being hated, it’s being forgotten. Thatcher will never be forgotten.
All women must learn something from Margaret Thatcher. You don’t have to be the best at what you do, but with determination, single-mindedness, hard work, and discipline, you can make a huge impact and be the most memorable.