Read The Real Iron Lady Online
Authors: Gillian Shephard
The Real Iron Lady (11 page)
Three of the contributors to this book have written accounts of the Brighton bomb. I have included all three in full because, while the accounts overlap, they complement one another in their vivid depiction of the terrifying attack.
Joan Seccombe had become Vice-Chairman of the National Union (the voluntary side of the Conservative Party) by 1984.
The 1984 Conservative Party Conference in Brighton was one which changed many lives, due to the extraordinary events which unfolded. On the Thursday evening, 11 October, we had retired to bed in Room 19 on the third floor of the Grand Hotel when there was the most enormous explosion followed by a strange rumbling sound, which we later found out was the building collapsing in on itself. Lights went out, bells rang furiously. We dressed, partially, with speed and left by the emergency exit fire escape. The main staircase was blocked so our route was through Lady Airey's room. I will always remember emerging from the Grand Hotel and seeing Sir Keith Joseph standing immaculately on the seafront, resplendent and bedecked in cravat and silk dressing gown! We went into the adjoining Metropole Hotel, and were generously provided with refreshments throughout the night. Nobody quite knew what had happened to others staying in the hotel, but we were assured that the Prime Minister was safe and had been whisked away.
Seven people lost their lives and some were horribly injured, particularly Norman and Margaret Tebbit, who still bear the scars today. We had no idea what would happen next, but Margaret, as ever, led from the front. At 9.30 a.m., the scheduled time for the conference to
begin, she was on show, immaculately dressed and with an air of calm about her. Her actions steadied the atmosphere for the nation and the session proceeded as organised, even if the dress of the day was not always as planned. In the afternoon, with a speech hastily amended, she showed her true sense of leadership, her defiance of terrorism and her determination to have business as usual. After the conference, and with practically no sleep, she went to the Brighton Hospital where she spent many hours with those who had been injured. I found it immensely inspiring and comforting to have a Prime Minister with such strength, courage and compassion.
Sir Anthony Garner was one of the most senior Central Office officials at the Conference that year.
I had a remarkable escape. During the summer my wife and I had gone to the Conservative Women's Ball with friends. One won the lucky programme prize â a week for two at Champneys â and she kindly invited my wife to join her. I suggested that they went during the Party Conference when I would be away from home. Because of this, instead of having a double room at the front of the hotel I had a single room, two rooms away from where I would normally have been.
At 2 a.m. I went up in the lift with Eric Taylor, the North West Area Chairman and a dear friend of mine. We said goodnight on the third floor and he went on up to his room. That was the last I saw of him. When the bomb went off, his room and others, one of which I would have occupied, collapsed, and the occupants fell to the basement. He died there a few hours later. The Prime Minister and Denis, in their room near the centre of the explosion, also had a remarkable
escape. It must have been a terrifying experience for them both and they were lucky to live through it. They were quickly taken by the police to a âsafe house' where they remained for the rest of the night.
At about 5 a.m., I went with John Gummer, the Party Chairman, to a meeting with the Chief Constable at Police HQ. We discussed whether or not the final session of the conference should continue that morning. The police said that although a full search of the hall was being conducted, they could not guarantee that there was no further device. We ourselves had to consider whether or not sufficient members would, in the circumstances, attend. Both the chairman and I felt that we should continue if at all possible. John phoned Mrs Thatcher at the âsafe house'. The conversation went something like this. âMargaret, we are here with the Chief Constable discussing whether or not we should continue with the conference in the morning.' Immediately, she replied, âYes, and we must start promptly at 9.30 a.m. I myself will be there at 9.15.' There was no further comment on either side.
We were not allowed back into the hotel and that morning I was still dressed in my very dusty dinner jacket and a tie I had borrowed from one of our stalls at the conference. When Mrs T. arrived at the hall promptly at 9.15 a.m., I took her into a small room at the back of the stage. I assured her that there was a full house and that everyone was very cheerful and looking forward to her speech. She was delighted. While I was talking to her, I was sitting on a table opposite to her. Suddenly she said, âTony, do you realise that you have odd shoes on?' In the darkness of my room I had picked up one black brogue and one Oxford shoe! That seemed to me a real example of her attention to detail. She was a remarkable woman who, despite her
terrible experience, remained extremely cool and gave a great speech at the final session of the conference.
Tom King was also at Brighton for the Party Conference.
One particular memory of working with Margaret Thatcher was her courage and fortitude in dangerous times. There was no question that during that active period of IRA terrorism she was their prime target, and yet she faced it with great courage and resolution at all times.
None of us who were in the Grand Hotel that night will ever forget the shock of that bomb attack, even though, thankfully, the robustness of the hotel prevented a far greater loss of life than would otherwise have been the case. The bomb went off at around 3 a.m. There was at the time great uncertainty as to whether that would be the only bomb or whether, a favourite tactic of the IRA, there would be a follow-up with a further ambush or other attack. Margaret Thatcher was fortunately uninjured even though her room was damaged. However, she was able to move and it was decided she should go immediately via the Brighton police station to Lewes. She can hardly have had two hours' sleep before she awoke to hear of the sad deaths, including Roberta Wakeham and Tony Berry, and the injuries to John Wakeham and to Norman and Margaret Tebbit.
She immediately determined that the conference would go on and of course it was the final day, at which she was due to give the concluding speech. I shall never forget the reception that the whole hall gave at 9.30 that morning, when Margaret Thatcher and the Cabinet and the National Union Officers marched on to the platform, on time, for the opening of the conference. Nor will I forget the courage of the
speech that she then delivered, making clear that democracy would not be defeated by terrorism, that our conference was not going to be disrupted, and that that message of resolution stood out so clearly on that day.
I was not an MP at the time of the Brighton bomb attack, but the enormity of the outrage, a terrorist attack designed to wipe out the whole of the democratically elected government of the country, took some time to sink in, at least partly because of the immediate horror of the deaths and injuries, and the inevitable appalled speculation of what might have been. Margaret Thatcher's demeanour, outwardly totally calm, in control and resolute, hid the fear she must have been feeling, indeed was feeling according to Hugo Young.
Privately she was as terrified, according to friends, as any human being would expect to be. How could anyone shake off the knowledge that she, she in particular, and above all was the target? The event moved her far more deeply than her somewhat routine public expressions of bravado might have indicated.
Three years later, she was required to summon up further reserves of courage on the occasion of the IRA atrocity on Remembrance Day at Enniskillen. Tom King, by that time Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, describes what happened.
I remembered Brighton so well again three years later, November 1987, when the IRA detonated a bomb at the Remembrance Day Parade in Enniskillen. I got to Enniskillen that afternoon, and saw the terrible destruction and loss of life that that outrage had caused. I expressed my conviction at the time that such outrages would not deter the people of Northern Ireland from their determination to live their lives in the future in peace and not be dictated to by terrorism. This was echoed quite soon afterwards by a statement from the British Legion, saying that they were not going to allow their parade to be prevented in this way, and that they would hold another parade two weeks later. This was widely supported across the whole of the United Kingdom by other Legion branches who were determined to send their support. A huge number of standard bearers proposed to attend the re-enactment of the Remembrance Day parade in the square at Enniskillen. As Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, I certainly wished to attend the parade, but I then realised that it would be even better if Margaret Thatcher, as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, was able to attend as well. I discussed it with Charles Powell, her Private Secretary, and asked if it would be possible for her to come to Enniskillen, and what engagements she had on that day. It then turned out that she had committed to a meeting with President Mitterand in Paris. I asked what time that meeting was, and it turned out that she was due to be there in the afternoon. That meant, with the help of the RAF, that it would be possible for her to come to Enniskillen in the morning, by flying direct to Aldergrove, travel by helicopter to St Angelo base close to Enniskillen and to drive in to the parade. When this was put to her, there wasn't a moment's hesitation and she agreed, indeed, wished, to attend.
Of course the fact of her being committed to go to France for her meeting with President Mitterand was the perfect cover when some press queries arose in the two weeks before the next parade, as to whether she might be attending, when we could say she was going to France. There is no doubt that the security did work and I shall never forget, as we got out of the car in the square in Enniskillen, the collective gasp of recognition from the huge crowd as she stepped out and took her place in the line beside the war memorial.
Her action in attending the parade had a huge impact right across Northern Ireland. There had been great distress at the outrage, particularly among the Unionist community, that it should have occurred on Remembrance Day, such an important day for so many in the Province. That act of leadership by her in being present, and showing her resolution and support for the Province, showed great courage and had a particularly valuable impact on attitudes in the Province. The parade itself was given blanket coverage on television throughout the morning by BBC and ITV, and further enhanced the virtually universal condemnation of the outrage from both Unionist and Nationalist communities, and was a major setback for the IRA and Sinn Féin. There is no question that Margaret Thatcher's presence gave a real focus to the coming together of the whole community, and strong leadership just when it was needed.
Sometimes that courage was misplaced, certainly in the view of party colleagues and the press. This was the position when she was required to reply to an emergency Commons debate called by Labour on the Westland affair on 27 January 1986. Briefly, the Westland affair
started in 1985 with a dispute between Leon Brittan at the Department of Trade and Industry and Michael Heseltine at the Ministry of Defence, about a possible rescue package for Westland Helicopters based in Somerset. Leon Brittan favoured a merger with the US helicopter giant Sikorsky; Heseltine, a European consortium of helicopter manufacturers. This escalated into a full-blown row, with accusations of unconstitutional behaviour on the part of Margaret Thatcher, leaks, secret press briefings, all of which culminated in Michael Heseltine's dramatic resignation from the Cabinet. I will not rehearse the rights and wrongs of the convoluted issue here. Suffice it to say that the role of the government, Margaret Thatcher's government, in the matter seemed not entirely above suspicion. The debate, as the opposition well knew, would provide a dramatic parliamentary opportunity to expose that role once and for all. The Prime Minister said on a number of occasions that as she left Downing Street for the debate, she did not know if she would be Prime Minister when she returned. As is frequently the case, what was billed as a knockout parliamentary occasion failed to live up to expectations, not least because Neil Kinnock as opposition leader simply did not manage to deliver a killer blow. Margaret Thatcher herself admitted having made mistakes: âWith hindsight, it is clear that this was one, and doubtless there were others, of a number of matters which could have been handled better, and that too, I regret.'
But the occasion left her washed out and exhausted.
Peter Riddell, at that time Political Editor of the
Financial Times,
paints a haunting picture of the Prime Minister.
Only once did I see the mask fall, in January 1986, after the end of the great Westland debate in the House of Commons. After weeks of infighting, disclosures, and resignation of two Cabinet ministers, her hold on power appeared to be under threat. The case against her and her advisers in Downing Street was strong. That morning, as she left for the Commons, she said that might be her last day as Prime Minister. In the event, Neil Kinnock made a mess of his attack on her, she delivered a competent reply, and Michael Heseltine, her great challenger, drew a line under the affair in what Michael Foot called his re-ratting speech. And despite everything, the Tory Party did not want all the upheaval and divisions of changing their leader. When the dramas of the afternoon had been played out, I bumped into her with Archie Hamilton, her faithful PPS, in one of the small corridors by the terrace. I made some no doubt inane remark about the debate and she replied, for once incoherently, looking utterly drained and exhausted. The curtain had fallen, the exam was over, the final lap had been run, and the victor had nothing left.