Baroness Thatcher's tale prompted an oddly persistent squalling from the benches. Her fellow mothers were far more intrigued
If I'm one of Thatcher's children, born as I was in 1980, what's Kitty? Her grandchild?
Kitty's contemporaries, more grandchildren of Thatcher, were certainly not interested in hearing about the trials and tribulations of young Margaret Roberts or old Baroness T. We had one or two real screamers – clearly really staunch socialists – for whom no moment of the film was an emollient.
Not even Maggie's post-elocution voice could calm them down. The wailing peaked when Carol had to tell her vague and baffled mother that she was no longer prime minister and that her husband was dead. They really didn't like all the explosions, either – not of Airey Neave in a Westminster underground car park, nor of the Grand Hotel in Brighton. Yelled and yelled they did, as Jim Broadbent's Denis appeared in his dusty pyjamas. "UH-OH!" cried Kitty.
(Not that most people didn't grow up scared to death of the IRA. My aunt still won't come to London from her native Wales because she's terrified of being blown up on the Number 13 bus.)
But what was all the unusually loud howling about, I wonder? Was it the lack of much in the way of a soothing soundtrack? Did they sense the dismay of Carol and Mark, the actual children of Thatcher, as their mother drove away to Westminster, ignoring their cries of "Don't go, Mummy!" and shoving their toys and sweeties into the glovebox? Did they feel sympathy for the hungry bellies of the striking miners' children? Were they trying to tell us we had no excuses: that Maggie was the mother of twins at 28 and still went on to be the prime minister? "One's life must matter," she says in the film. "I cannot die washing up a teacup!" Amen, sister – easy if you only need four hours' sleep a night. (And yet … what are you doing lazing about at the movies, Mummy?) Or was it just a general objection on behalf of infant bottoms everywhere to Thatcher's enthusiasm for bringing back birching?
And what of us, the surprisingly full crowd of bien pensant north London ladies, all gawping up at Maggie as she strutted on the screen, part Elizabeth I, part cartoon villain? We are Glenda Jackson's constituents, all bound publicly to profess a hatred of Margaret Thatcher at dinner parties to save us from shrieking accusations of evil (even if we can't name one Thatcherite domestic policy). And yet there we were, hanging on every word.
Perhaps we unwittingly, unconsciously missed her, that strange combination of neighbourhood battleaxe and cartoon villain, in the same binary way we miss John Craven's Newsround or the Thames Television logo. Perhaps we wanted to know how she did it all with two children. Or did we, ghoulishly, want to know what comes next? Family life stretches you as thin as you can go – the endless chores and duties, running and running just to stand still. Even with our giggling bouncing babies, we occasionally just wish it would all go away.
But it doesn't – it can't. And when you spend years, decades on that treadmill, and then it slows down and eventually stops, what then? We do everything for our babies right now, at full steam, and eventually you forget what life was like before you had to put more than one pair of shoes on before leaving the house. Let's hope we'll be able to let go, to ease off the gas when the time comes, and not fall into the same trap at Maggie, still giving speeches about showing no fear and jamming a tin hat on when the war's been over for years.
At least dementia looks reasonably fun. Say what you like about Denis Thatcher, he seemed a laugh, willing to throw back snifters and put on a silly hat with good grace. Real or imaginary, it'd probably be alright to have him around.
I retreated to the ladies' at the end of the film because I had something in my eye, but didn't want anyone to see because they might beat me as a suspected Tory.
But I was too slow. "Sorry," said a red-eyed woman at the mirror with an infant under one arm.
"Don't worry," I said. "I won't tell."
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2012/jan/11/the-iron-lady-bringing-along-baby
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