Thatcher's tears
From Sir Archie Hamilton Sir: Matthew Parris (Another voice, 17 May) quotes someone close to Margaret Thatcher as saying that she was unmoved by the satirical portraits in words and pictures that she had inspired.
His respondent went on, 'It wasn't that she refused to read the more personal stuff, and it wouldn't have upset her; it was just that she really wasn't interested.'
While I was her PPS from 1987 to 1988, she relied totally on a summary of the weekday papers produced on a few pages of foolscap by Bernard Ingham's press department. One day I asked why she did not read the daily papers. She replied, They write such hurtful things about me and my family that if I read the papers every day, I would find it impossible to get on with the job for which I am paid.'
Archie Hamilton London SW1
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