I have vivid, if occasionally blurred, memories of that glorious day, 4 May 1979, on which Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister and set about transforming Britain and, with Ronald Reagan, creating the circumstances which were to bring about the fall of the Soviet Empire.
After working to get the vote out in South London marginals until the polls closed, we went to a late night shop in Knightsbridge to invest in Blue Curacao to make "Maggie Blue" cocktails. In those pre-Thatcher days it was so much more difficult to buy anything after 5.30 p.m. than it is now, after she set the economy free.
We then went to a University College London hall of residence, where we knew a student with that then rare luxury - a television - in her room. Determined, even then, to demonstrate no complacency about the result (David Cameron would have approved!) I infuriated people by insisting that we were all doomed. Even watching the Finchley declaration itself, I feared the worst. Gradually, things started to improve, but anyone expecting a detailed recollection of this must look elsewhere as, by this time, the Blue Maggie cocktails - essentially a lethal mix of the Blue Curacao and whatever other alcohol was to hand - had started to take their toll. At some point, I remember being aware that victory was assured.
The next thing I knew, I was being woken up in the corridor outside, having, unsurprisingly, thrown up the contents of my Blue Maggie cocktails in the nearby khazi. Despite everything, I felt invigorated and we rushed to Victoria Station to buy every newspaper we could lay our hands on - including, for once, socialist rags such as the Grauniad and the Mirror, just to gloat at their discomfort. We then headed for the Albert pub on Victoria Street, to partake of a gigantic victory breakfast, while we drooled over the newspaper reports of the election results. I still have those newspapers to this day.
We then headed off for 19 Flood Street, the Thatcher residence in Chelsea, just off King's Road. We were thrilled to arrive just as Margaret and Denis were leaving, through a sea of reporters.
Next, we moved on to Conservative Central Office, Smith Square, in the rather forlorn hope that we might see Maggie again there. Again, to our delight, we reached there just in time to see her arrive.
I then decided to purchase a blue bouquet to hand in to No. 10, eventually settling on a bunch of blue irises in the florists adjoining the late lamented Army & Navy Stores food hall. Then we headed for Downing Street - not a fortress in those days. We found ourselves almost directly opposite the famous front door, in good time to see "Sunny Jim" Callaghan leave. Such was my youthful partisanship, that I had been intent on booing and jeering him, but, thankfully, I thought better of it. Callaghan, throughout the election, behaved with considerable dignity - quite unlike that sour, serial loser, Neil Kinnock, in subsequent elections.
We were now strategically placed for the great moment itself - the arrival of Britain's first female Prime Minister. The crowd was quite different to the stage-managed scene that greeted Tony Blair in 1997, when Labour employees were deputed to line the street with Union Jacks provided for them by Mandy's spin machine. This crowd was a mix of fanatical Tories such as myself, a good few tourists and passers-by, but also a large, loud and threatening rent-a-mob of lefty Thatcher-haters. If you listen to the television and radio coverage of the event, you will hear plenty of booing mixed with the cheers.
When the great moment arrived, I, of course, cheered like mad. Although I had seen Maggie on numerous occasions before, now, for the first time, it hit me how small she was. I was concerned for her safety in view of the proximity of the hateful lefties and what I felt was an inadequate police presence. But, more than that, I realised then just how much depended on this small, rather frail-looking woman. Don't forget that the memory of the murder of Airey Neave (the brilliant and courageous man who had masterminded Mrs T's defeat of Heath in the 1975 leadership election), just a couple of hundred yards away, was still very fresh in our minds.
Eventually, Maggie went in to Number Ten, to start her heroic work of rebuilding Britain after the failures of the Macmillan, Heath, Wilson and Callaghan years of socialist and consensus thinking had brought the country to its knees. I delivered my bouquet (on behalf of the King's College London Conservative Association, of which I was then Chairman) to a copper and watched while it went through the door.
Then, off for more drinking and basking in the sheer joy of the moment. It was only much later at night, though, that the sheer scale and significance of the day's events really sank in. I deliberately made a detour from my normal route home, to walk the length of Whitehall. Suddenly, for the first time in my life, looking at the great buildings of state, floodlit, with hardly a soul around, I felt proud to be British. Since I had learnt to read, I had read all about Britain's great past. It had been a shock to me to find, in those dismal Heath-Wilson years, that Britain had sunk in to a mire of defeatism and decline.
Now, at long last, I walked, with a spring in my step, feeling ten-foot tall, believing that we finally had a Prime Minister who would reverse that decline. High though my hopes were, little did I know just what a magnificent job Margaret Thatcher would do for her country and for the cause of freedom.
The Freedom Association is determined to do all it can to promote the great principles and values Margaret Thatcher stood for. Going around universities, I have been struck by how great is the admiration Conservative students have for Lady Thatcher. Take a look at the video below to see how, for example, she has inspired a whole term of activities at Oxford University. We are determined to do all we can to foster her values and reputation amongst future generations. David Cameron should be, and must be, his own man, but, as John Whittingdale, a Council Member of The Freedom Association, has written on Conservative Home, Margaret Thatcher's courage and vision should serve as an inspiration for the next Conservative government which will, once again, face the task of rebuilding Britain from the ruins left by an incompetent socialist government.
Simon Richards
