Margaret Thatcher: As 2,000 guests prepare for funeral just 4 names appear in the City's book of tributes
Considering what she did for their jobs and international prestige, not to mention their bonuses, one might have expected a little more enthusiasm from the locals yesterday as formal commemorations for Lady Thatcher began in the City of London.
By lunchtime, the Square Mile’s official book of condolence – alongside the only public statue of Britain’s only woman Prime Minister – contained just four entries. Two of them were from little girls aged nine and six.
For much of the morning, it was just me, the Iron (or should that be Marble?) Lady and a policeman keeping an eye on things at the Guildhall Art Gallery, next to the City’s medieval headquarters.
‘Ah, here it is. About time, too,’ declared Peter Rosengard, 66, arriving just after midday. The life insurance salesman had been ringing round for hours to find out where he might inscribe a tribute.
‘How come there have been books of condolence all over the world and it’s taken four days to open one in London?’
He sat down, gathered his thoughts, and wrote: ‘Our greatest peacetime PM. She had courage, determination, single-mindedness and dedication. UNDEFEATED.’
It does seem odd that people have been lining up to pen tributes at British embassies, high commissions and consulates from Ecuador to Hong Kong since Monday. Yet, until yesterday morning, the only books in Britain were to be found in Lady Thatcher’s home town of Grantham or her former constituency of Finchley. Now, at last, a handful are to be found in the centre of the capital.
After all this week’s crowing and necro-jubilation from the Left, there is something refreshingly dignified and tranquil about this modest shrine in the City, the engine room of the British economy.
More... From the Iron Chancellor to the Iron Lady: Angela Merkel signs book of condolence to Baroness Thatcher as thousands pay their respects across the world It's Willoughby vs Dimbleby: ITV pit jolly Holly against sombre-toned BBC veteran David to cover Margaret Thatcher's funeral 'Burn in hell!': Shocking anti-Thatcher graffiti in central London as unrepentant 'death party' organiser compares dead former PM to HitlerThe Guildhall is home to the full-size marble study of Lady Thatcher, by Neil Simmons, which was decapitated in 2002. Since being restored, the Lady has stood in a protective glass case. But she is in pride of place, standing by the window and dwarfing busts of George V, Queen Mary and the Victorian Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury.
She is framed by a distinguished collection of late 19th-century paintings by Millais, Rossetti and others. They are just the sort of Anglocentric, romantic, patriotic scenes which Lady Thatcher’s intellectual critics would despise (though they would doubtless approve of the temporary exhibition downstairs: ‘FIERCE – Portraits of young black lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer people’).
Follow Lady Thatcher’s gaze out of the window across Guildhall Square and you see the cityscape of skyscrapers and office blocks beyond. When she came to power, much of this was a dozy backwater for the old boys’ network. Without her – and the ‘Big Bang’ transformation of the City during the Eighties – would London be the international metropolis it is today? Most unlikely, said the random selection of City workers I talked to outside.
Gladys Hosken signs the Square Mile's official book of condolence for Margaret Thatcher in the City of London‘Everyone round here owes her a huge debt,’ said fund manager Simon Edelsten, who began work in the early Thatcher years. ‘The City didn’t want to change much and they liked their cosy lunches with a couple of bottles of claret. Then she blew it wide open.’ By mid-afternoon, there were a few more entries in the book – ‘A humble beginning, a magnificent leader and a LADY – the Parthasarathy family’; ‘Thank you for empowering women – Cat Bowie’. I have no doubt the queues will be forming today. These things tend to gather momentum once word spreads.
The pages were filling up more quickly across London at St Margaret’s Westminster, Parliament’s parish church and another official site for paying one’s respects. Here, beneath ancient memorials to long-forgotten public servants, three books of condolence have been laid out below the altar.
Word on the street: Robert Hardman spoke to a selection of City workers, with fund manager Simon Edelsten, who began work in the early Thatcher years, saying: 'Everyone round here owes her a huge debt'Here was proof, if proof were needed, of Lady Thatcher’s global clout. Aside from the first name in the book – the Dean of Westminster – and that of General David Leakey (aka Black Rod) on page two, almost all the names were from overseas.
‘Riposa in Pace – Gianni + Giulia’ said one, in between entries from India, Hungary, Australia, France and Belgium. Arlyn Moi from Oslo saluted Lady T’s fortitude. ‘Maggie – we love you and thank you,’ wrote ‘John F Scanlon, USA.’ True, most of those signing the books were tourists hiding from the rain or en route to Westminster Abbey. But no one was prompting them to pay their respects.
Every hour, on the hour, duty chaplain Peter Hills took to the pulpit and delivered a short prayer: ‘We give you thanks for the life of Margaret – all that she was and is to the people of this land, her service and her unstinting work.’ He then extended his prayer to include all MPs: ‘May they never lead the nation wrongly through love of power, desire to please or unworthy ideals.’ Perish the thought.
