Thatcher Through The Eyes Of Ordinary Britons
A retired miner, ex-soldier and a child of the 80s give their contrasting views on the former leader dubbed the Iron Lady.
Tuesday 16 April 2013 09:08, UK
Like it or not Margaret Thatcher has taken a symbolic place within the national identity and her policies still shape the way people live today.
Retired colliery worker Dick Quin points around him to the ghosts of a former coalfield.
"Two-and-a-half thousand jobs went there," he says looking in one direction, "and two thousand went over there", he adds, gesturing in another.
He is referring to the pits that were once dotted around the Durham coalfield and his list of closures continues.
"There were 2,500 at Dawdon where I used to work," he says.
Mr Quin is at the Robin Todd centre in the same village and is taking a break from rehearsals with the Durham Miners Association Brass Band, of which he is secretary.
They have been booked to play at nearby Easington on Tuesday for an event that has been variously described in the area as a Thatcher death celebration and a get-together to mark the 20th anniversary of a local pit closure.
He has seen many changes over the past thirty years and blames much of it on Margaret Thatcher.
"It's the younger people I feel sorry for. All the work has gone. There are some 28-year-olds here who have never had a job," he says.
His view of the former prime minister could scarcely be more removed from that of former commando and photographer Peter Holdgate, who captured a now celebrated image of soldiers "yomping" through a bleak Falklands landscape.
His admiration of Lady Thatcher is undimmed.
"Perhaps politicians nowadays could do with taking some pointers from Margaret Thatcher and actually saying what they mean instead of saying what they think people want to hear," he said.
What the people of Toxteth in Liverpool want to hear is how much longer they will have to wait for regeneration and investment, according to youth worker Stephen Nze.
As a youngster in 1981 he witnessed civil disturbances during which CS gas grenades were used by police on mainland Britain for the first time.
He said: "She said that where there was discord she would bring harmony. The marks of her premiership today are no community ... or the last of a community ... a community that's trying to hold itself together ... empty derelict spaces, empty boarded up houses, no jobs, no industry and no infrastructure."
The rows of boarded-up houses in areas where the rioting took place underline the atmosphere of stagnation in parts of Toxteth.
It is a different story on the Whittington estate in North London where those who took advantage of Lady Thatcher's right-to-buy policy still count their blessings, while those who missed out continue to live in regret.
Hospital receptionist Frances Saldanha has seen the price of one flat soar in ten years from £30,000 to £250,000.
"I think any parent wants to leave something behind when they die ... in that sense I would have liked to have bought my property for that reason."
Historians will assess Lady Thatcher's legacy for who knows how long. And what will be their final judgement on the Iron Lady ? - a saviour who put the great back in Great Britain or a zealot who bequeathed enduring division?
Whatever the verdict, no-one - regardless of their politics or experience - can doubt that she changed our lives.