Oh What A Time... - #37 Prime Ministers (Part 1)
Episode Date: April 14, 2024This 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 time...rs 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 hello@ohwhatatime.com 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
Transcript
Discussion (0)
What's 2FA security on Kraken?
Let's say I'm captaining my soccer team,
and we're up by a goal against, I don't know, the Burlington Bulldogs.
Do we relax? No way.
Time to create an extra line of defense and protect that lead.
That's like 2FA on Kraken.
A surefire way to keep what you already have safe and sound.
Go to Kraken.com and see what crypto can be.
Not investment advice. Crypto trading involves risk of loss. See Kraken.com slash legal slash CA dash PRU dash disclaimer for info on
Kraken's undertaking to register in Canada. I'm going back to university for $0 delivery fee,
up to 5% off orders and 5% Uber cash back on rides. Not whatever you think university is for.
Get Uber One for students. With deals this good, everyone wants to be a student. Join for just $4.99
a month. Savings may vary. Eligibility and member terms apply.
Looking for a collaborator for your career?
A strong ally to support your next level success?
You will find it at York University School of Continuing Studies,
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.
Please play responsibly. If you or someone you know has concerns about gambling, visit connectsontario.ca
It's a new day.
How can you make the most of it with your
membership rewards points? Earn points
on everyday purchases. Use them
for that long-awaited vacation.
You can earn points almost anywhere
and they never expire.
Treat your friends or spoil
your family. Earn them on your adventure
and use them how you want, when you want.
That's the powerful backing of American Express.
Learn more at amex.ca slash yamxtermsapply.
So later in the show, I'm going to be talking to you about Ramsey MacDonald,
who was the first ever Labour Prime Minister.
I'll be talking about Lloyd George.
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.