Margaret Thatcher
Volume II: The Iron Lady
By John Campbell
Jonathan Cape pound;25

What have the death of JFK, the resignation of Margaret Thatcher and the attack on the World Trade Center in New York on 911 got in common? In all three cases, we can remember exactly where we were when the news broke. For me, the three intensely vivid experiences form a sandwich. The first and last were occasions of shock and tragedy; the meat in the middle, when Maggie was finally “out, out, out”, was a long-anticipated delight.

John Campbell quotes the artist Tracey Emin, who recalls walking through the Elephant and Castle in London on resignation day. “I noticed people were jumping up and down in the street... People looked so happy. I felt absolute jubilation.”

It wasn’t so for everybody. A secretary in Didsbury recalled being in a pub when the news came through on television. “Everyone shouted ‘Hoorah’. and I stood up and said, ‘How dare you? She’s the best thing thatnbsp; ever happened to this country.’ I felt very sad.”

Read more in this week’s TES Friday magazinenbsp;