Oh Maggie! Maggie Thatcher

Margaret Hilda Thatcher (née Roberts), Baroness Thatcher

by Gerald Scarfe pen and indian ink, 1983 33 1/2 in. x 23 3/8 in. (851 mm x 594 mm)
Purchased, 1988 NPG 6010

Oh Maggie, what is a woman to do eh? Women don't like you, men pee in their pants when they hear your voice. And this Wednesday past they laughed at your grave. They came to protest and cursed at your soul. They stopped the buses from coming to town in your honour. And the zero hour workers, The poor on minimum wage had to work to walk on Wednesday or lose their pay. Who is it that says, "that better notoriety than to leave the world unmarked"? Did you love your country? I think you did. They hate you like they hated Jesus I suppose.

When I was three my favourite word was NO so father called me "Thatcher Thatcher Thatcher" and when I was 10 I was proud of the memory. When  I finally got here you were gone in the head a whiten old woman who trembled and slurred and I was caught up in my misery I missed your last wit, "the mummy returns". I remember the cringe when Gordon and Cameron each brought you out.

What happened to my Iron Lady the super hero to a toddling 5 year African child. And to hear in the press that you were for FW de Klerk and Mandela was a terrorist not that I care for the man. That you were for apartheid and section 28. Large humongous subjects that attack my social definition, my status, the box I must tick for my government papers.

But I care not about who they say you were or are. To me you will always be the great Margaret Thatcher, Iron Lady an idol to me. A symbol of what a woman can achieve through grit and strength. Through hard work and insults, through doubt and fighting, through charisma and flirting by the grace of a benevolent Being or through him if he is not onside. R.I.P