Life in bustling London pauses to remember life of former prime minister Thatcher

Margaret Thatcher’s family, from left, daughter Carol Thatcher and partner Marco Grass, Sarah Thatcher, wife of son Mark Thatcher, and grandchildren Michael and Amanda Thatcher watch as the coffin is carried away after Wednesday’s funeral.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Margaret Thatcher’s family, from left, daughter Carol Thatcher and partner Marco Grass, Sarah Thatcher, wife of son Mark Thatcher, and grandchildren Michael and Amanda Thatcher watch as the coffin is carried away after Wednesday’s funeral.

LONDON — England’s bustling capital paused on Wednesday to remember an important leader in its history.

Few would argue that Margaret Thatcher, who served as England’s first female prime minister from 1979 to 1990, was without great influence. She died April 8 at age 87.

PHOTO GALLERY: Services for Margaret Thatcher

Alice Prochaska, the principal at Oxford’s Somerville College that Ms. Thatcher attended, was “deeply moved” by the funeral service at St. Paul’s Cathedral, which she attended with two students.

“One personal reflection came when I saw the coffin draped with our national flag, surrounded by all the solemnity of the occasion, and I reflected that with all that there is to remember about Margaret Thatcher’s record as a world-changing politician,” Ms. Prochaska said, “she achieved this extraordinary pre-eminence against all the odds of an unprivileged background and the prejudices against women that prevailed in her generation.”

Ms. Prochaska thought the hour-long service was “extremely well done, from start to finish.”

“I was so impressed by Lady Thatcher’s American granddaughter, Amanda, who did the first reading, from Ephesians. She performed it perfectly,” Ms. Prochaska said. “The Bishop of London [Richard Chartres] gave a very appropriate address carefully attuned to the fact that Margaret Thatcher was one of the most controversial of politicians and would not have wished for a eulogy.”

Bishop Chartres said in his sermon that “this, at Lady Thatcher’s personal request, is a funeral service, not a memorial service with the customary eulogies. And at such a time, the parson should not aspire to the judgments which are proper to the politician. Instead, this is a place for ordinary human compassion of the kind that is reconciling. It is also the time for the simple truths which transcend political debate. And above all, it is the place for hope.”

He noted the courtesy and kindness that Ms. Thatcher showed to those who worked for her, as well as her capacity to reach out to the young and to those who were not “important” in the world’s eyes.

Bishop Chartres told the story of her answering in her own handwriting a letter from a young boy whose father had told him that “everyone does wrong things except for Jesus,” and the boy didn’t think that the prime minister could possibly have done bad things.

Ms. Thatcher wrote him “a very straightforward letter which took the question seriously,” Bishop Chartres said.

“However good we try to be, we can never be as kind, gentle, and wise as Jesus,” Ms. Thatcher wrote. “There will be times when we do or say something we wish we hadn’t done, and we shall be sorry and try not to do it again.”

Even the bishop recalled the time he was taken under Ms. Thatcher’s tutelage when, during a serious conversation at a city function, she paused, took his wrist, and said emphatically, “Don’t touch the duck pate, bishop — it’s very fattening.”

Amanda Thatcher, the American granddaughter of Margaret Thatcher, delivers a reading during the funeral service in St. Paul's Cathedral in London.

Those who came to pay their respects before and after the church service far outnumbered protesters, many of whom seemed too young to have been alive when Ms. Thatcher was in office.

Louis Court, 18, an unemployed London resident, held a protest sign outside the church that said, “We remember: The miners, Falklands, Poll tax, Bobby Sands. Now bury Thatcherism.”

He said he was demonstrating because “her legacy lives on in the policies of the current prime minister and the prime ministers since her. Plus, I really like to shout.”

Others outside the church were there to pay tribute to what they said were positive changes she brought to the country.

“This country was a complete basket case when she took over,” said Charles Bingham, 52, a retired banker. “The country was bankrupt. People like to say she wiped out manufacturing, but it was already wiped out.”

Edyta Niemierzynska, 38, an archaeology graduate student, said her childhood in Communist Poland during Ms. Thatcher’s administration in London gave her another perspective.

“I very much appreciate what she did [both for England and Poland],” said Ms. Niemierzynska, who after standing outside the church for several hours before and after the funeral took a break at nearby Artigiano Cafe.

John Alvey, 70, said former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who was a personal friend, 'put the Great back into Britain' during her leadership from 1979 to 1990.

John Alvey, 70, a counterprotester outside the church, held a large banner that included a photo of Ms. Thatcher and the message: “You gave millions of us hope, freedom and ambition. Thank you. RIP Baroness Thatcher.”

Mr. Alvey, a Tory (a conservative), is a former mayor of Wellington, near the Welsh border, and former councilman in Shropshire.

“She was a personal friend as well as a world leader,” Mr. Alvey said. “She put the Great back into Britain.”

Contact Tanya Irwin at: tirwin@theblade.com, or 419-724-6066.