ON THIS day in 1979 Britain had its first woman prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, whose Conservative Party had just won the general election. Olivia O’Leary had spent part of the election day with another woman in London and wrote this report:
Talk of a lady who will make Britain great
MARY BARRY hovered inside the glass doors of Holly Lodge Mansions in Camden Town, waiting for somebody. From outside, the reflection of the sun and the daffodils blotted out her face but when the Labour Party worker ran up the steps and in the door, there she was, with her orange hat and red coat on, looking as though she expected us.
“We’re looking for Mrs Barry,” said the Labour man. “Miss Barry”, she corrected gently, fixing him with her mild blue gaze. The Cork accent was as fresh as when she had left with her father many years ago and Mary Barry was now nearly 80. Did she want to come and vote now, asked the Labour man. She asked us into her flat and we followed her down the stairs into one of the apartments built for single ladies by Baroness Burdett Coutts.
Her key was around her neck, with her brown rosary beads, and inside the sunny, shabbie flat was a fat cat asleep near a bowl of boiled fish. “They called the other night, somebody did, about the election, but my father wasn’t here at the time. My father knows all about the elections. He wanted to be in the war, you know, and we lived across from the barracks in Cork. He went to the War as a Red Cross worker. And he was very good, very kind to people.”
Propped against an ornament on the window-sill was a note. It read: “Mother, I’m not feeling well.” The Labour man leaned across to her. “Do you know what day it is today? Do you know it’s election day?
Of course she knew that, she said, but that was all she knew. Her father would know who to vote for. He knew all about these things, she said. She didn’t know who to vote for, she said, and she wanted to do her best.
“I suppose you should vote for Conservatives or something. Who do you think is the best?”
The Labour man demurred. That was for her to decide but he had been sent to bring her to the polling centre by Jock Stallard, the sitting MP for Camden, St Pancras, North.
“There’s talk of a lady,” she said. “They say she is going to make Britain great. What’s her name? They say she is very prominent in the newspapers, a lady. Is she Mrs Stallard, is that her name?” No, said the Labour man. Mr Stallard was not a lady. There were no ladies running in this area.
She dithered. She wished her father would come back. When he came, he would know about these things.
Then she decided she’d come. She gathered up her plastic carrier-bag and climbed up the stairs, pearl hat pin securing her brimmed hat, darned stockings falling in folds at her ankles.
Britain was a wonderful country, didn’t we think so. But she would like to go back to Cork, eventually. Most people wanted to go home in the end, didn’t they.
“What is your man’s name?” she asked. “Stallard” said the Labour man, spelling it. She hobbled into the polling station, into the booth, and out again quickly. The Labour man said he didn’t think she had voted for anybody . . .
The old lady was still on our minds. What did she do all day, I asked the Labour man. He didn’t know. “I suppose she stands by that glass door all the time looking out.”
Looking at all the people pass by, said I idly.
“No. Looking for her father,” he said.
For other stories making the news on this day in 1979 go to www.irishtimes.com/150