Mrs Thatcher's death isn't a dancing in the street moment for me. I'm not pleased that a Grandmother/mother/old lady has died...but I do feel a sense of catharsis.
I was seven when Mrs Thatcher was voted in as the first female prime minister and I didn't have time to make up a view on that before my mother jumped up and pulled the plug off the television with the declaration that "that was fuckin' that...then!" I remember my Mum crying when John Lennon got shot, when the Pope got shot and when "that woman" became prime minister...my parents were always shouting at inanimate objects, televisions...radios...kettles...
I remember we quite liked the strikes, me and my brother, because we had candles then- candles are so exciting when you don't pay bills, but I've always thought when there's nothing- absolutely nothing- that's when things get interesting.
We didn't get our own political ideas until much later...if at all...like liking Boris Johnson, because he bullied David 'fat face' Cameron. But was I glad to see the death of the crippling sexism of the seventies- an era where it was okay to grope women and children? Was it sexist? Was it humiliating? Was it unjust??
We couldn't hark back to the shop floor politics we'd never known...and Tony Blair was quite visibly creepy, Gordon Brown...unhinged...
But neither I'm sure, could we forget the mounted police charging the miners, the hungry miners, the miners we sent food parcels to- that felt like civil war then - that's why people are upset, you know because she did that. Or the women at Greenham Common, or the butt-kissing of Ronald.... Regean ....Bush...not one Bush butt kisser...but two times a Bush butt kisser...
Oh, for a red Maggie????
But after all, by the time it came to the poll tax it was a joke, we all went to court for non payment of poll tax, just to cost them money- we refused to pay because as the Judge in my case said - "this is ridiculous..." So many mistakes were made!
Was it politics?
I'm not sure any more, I rather think my generation is as dead to politics as it is to everything else.
It is so nice to have a wicked witch to hate- it is great to miss the good old dark old days.
Myself, I've only just recently let myself wear blue. Would I ever vote Conservative? It's not in my make-up!
Mrs Thatcher's death feels like the end of an era. ... and somehow all ends are good, and if you feel that, you won't want to gloat, or sulk...(sulkery destroys more than one politician ever could).
Just like when you know for sure that a bad love affair is finally over, you've changed, you don't want it any more, your 'inner' witch is dead- finally- it's over...-thank God- it's over.
James1:
22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves.
