0:00:18 > 0:00:20Hello and welcome to Conversations.
0:00:20 > 0:00:23Today, my guest is a woman whose career has spanned not just
0:00:23 > 0:00:26party and class divides but political eras, too.
0:00:26 > 0:00:30She started in the Labour movement, co-founded a successful new party,
0:00:30 > 0:00:32the SDP, and eventually became a leading light in
0:00:32 > 0:00:35the Liberal Democrats.
0:00:35 > 0:00:38All along, this woman - once tipped to be Britain's first
0:00:38 > 0:00:40woman Prime Minister - has enjoyed almost universal
0:00:40 > 0:00:45personal popularity from all sides of the political spectrum.
0:00:45 > 0:00:47She was born into a family which challenged the political
0:00:47 > 0:00:50status quo and sparkled with a strong spirit of campaigning
0:00:50 > 0:00:54- a spirit she's carried with her ever since.
0:00:54 > 0:00:56Her former SDP colleague, Bill Rogers, once said,
0:00:56 > 0:00:59even if you're walking up a hill with her, she wants
0:00:59 > 0:01:01to be ahead of you.
0:01:01 > 0:01:03So let's try and catch up with Shirley Williams.
0:01:03 > 0:01:05Welcome.
0:01:05 > 0:01:07Thank you very much.
0:01:07 > 0:01:08Let's start at the beginning.
0:01:08 > 0:01:11You had, I suppose, what many people would consider quite a privileged
0:01:11 > 0:01:13childhood in what was then Bohemian Chelsea.
0:01:13 > 0:01:18Did that affect your view of the world and your
0:01:18 > 0:01:21politics, do you think?
0:01:21 > 0:01:23Well I had a combination because my father had been
0:01:23 > 0:01:28a Roman Catholic convert - largely converted, I think,
0:01:28 > 0:01:31probably by listening to a great deal of what was said by...
0:01:31 > 0:01:35One or two of the great Catholics of the period,
0:01:35 > 0:01:38and he took me to church regularly every Sunday.
0:01:38 > 0:01:41What was true about him was that he knew a huge
0:01:41 > 0:01:43amount about it all.
0:01:43 > 0:01:46He went back through centuries with huge knowledge.
0:01:46 > 0:01:48That was surprising because he was a very strong Labour man.
0:01:48 > 0:01:51He stood for Parliament two or three times, never got elected.
0:01:51 > 0:01:54But was very keen to get into Parliament.
0:01:54 > 0:01:56He wouldn't have been very good at it.
0:01:56 > 0:01:57It wasn't his sort of thing.
0:01:57 > 0:02:00So why do you think he wouldn't have been good at it?
0:02:00 > 0:02:02Because he was very much an intellectual.
0:02:02 > 0:02:03I don't mean clever.
0:02:03 > 0:02:05I mean, lots of people can intellectuals and can be clever.
0:02:05 > 0:02:08But what he was was somebody who loved the more mysterious
0:02:08 > 0:02:12aspects of theology.
0:02:12 > 0:02:15He was quite sympathetic towards Anglicans because his own
0:02:15 > 0:02:18father had been an Anglican vicar.
0:02:18 > 0:02:21So he was really quite well immolated in discussions
0:02:21 > 0:02:25on religion and so forth.
0:02:25 > 0:02:28My mother, of course, came from an Anglican background
0:02:28 > 0:02:32but had been extremely critical of the role of the Anglican Church
0:02:32 > 0:02:34during the First World War, when things were constantly
0:02:34 > 0:02:37presented as being for the sake of the country.
0:02:37 > 0:02:40You must put all other thoughts behind you.
0:02:40 > 0:02:44She, of course, out of that experience, first became
0:02:44 > 0:02:48a war nurse, a VAD - Voluntary Aid Detachment -
0:02:48 > 0:02:51nurse, at first mostly in France, in the war.
0:02:51 > 0:02:55She actually served a lot of the First World War on the front,
0:02:55 > 0:02:57not on the back, which was unusual for a woman.
0:02:57 > 0:03:01So between the two of them, although it could be called
0:03:01 > 0:03:03a privileged background in some ways, they were both
0:03:03 > 0:03:06hugely hard working.
0:03:06 > 0:03:08My mother had a very disciplined approach to writing.
0:03:08 > 0:03:10She loved writing but was very strict.
0:03:10 > 0:03:13You started writing at 9.30am, after you'd had breakfast,
0:03:13 > 0:03:16and you worked all the way through until about 7pm at night,
0:03:16 > 0:03:18when you had one drink.
0:03:18 > 0:03:20A cocktail, as they always called them in those days,
0:03:20 > 0:03:24followed by a bit of family life.
0:03:24 > 0:03:27But there's no doubt about it, she did a good 10 hours a day
0:03:27 > 0:03:30of writing, and she was absolutely devoted to it.
0:03:30 > 0:03:32Now, your mother was Vera Brittain and, of course, she was wrote
0:03:32 > 0:03:35a memorial to her fiancee and her brother in
0:03:35 > 0:03:38Testament of Youth.
0:03:38 > 0:03:42So by the time you were growing up, she was a very famous
0:03:42 > 0:03:43author, wasn't she?
0:03:43 > 0:03:44She was a best-selling author, yes.
0:03:44 > 0:03:47And in 1936, when Victor Gollancz, one of the...
0:03:47 > 0:03:52The book was rejected by about half a dozen well-known publishers,
0:03:52 > 0:03:55who sort of couldn't believe that a woman could write
0:03:55 > 0:03:57a book about war, anyway.
0:03:57 > 0:03:59It was a very odd idea to them.
0:03:59 > 0:04:02And the fact that she probably wrote, I would argue,
0:04:02 > 0:04:05one of the best single books about the First World War,
0:04:05 > 0:04:09along with people who became very famous also, like Siegfried Sassoon
0:04:09 > 0:04:11and so forth.
0:04:11 > 0:04:16But she was in that group, that kind of outstanding authors
0:04:16 > 0:04:18of the war who actually served in it.
0:04:18 > 0:04:20Robert Graves was another.
0:04:20 > 0:04:23All of that meant that she she couldn't see herself in the very
0:04:23 > 0:04:27conventional terms her own parents had seen her in, which she was
0:04:27 > 0:04:30an attractive young woman who would marry a fairly well-placed
0:04:30 > 0:04:32businessman in Derbyshire, where they came from.
0:04:32 > 0:04:38And therefore, for them, it was a huge jerk.
0:04:38 > 0:04:41Really difficult to actually accept not only that their daughter
0:04:41 > 0:04:44was a military nurse but that she was going to serve
0:04:44 > 0:04:48in another country.
0:04:48 > 0:04:51and towards the end of the war, in the last year, her father
0:04:51 > 0:04:55saw that his wife - her mother, in other words -
0:04:55 > 0:04:57was beginning to find it too hard to cope without the servants,
0:04:57 > 0:04:59of all things.
0:04:59 > 0:05:01There were not many servants to be had.
0:05:01 > 0:05:04They were back in the munitions factories.
0:05:04 > 0:05:06And so she was told, she was ordered to come home
0:05:06 > 0:05:08and look after her mother.
0:05:08 > 0:05:12And, of course, my mother was a person with very strong views
0:05:12 > 0:05:13and very strong opinions.
0:05:13 > 0:05:17She was outraged by the idea that she would leave hundreds
0:05:17 > 0:05:22of men, most of them dying in the middle of France, and come
0:05:22 > 0:05:25back to look after her mother, who had nothing wrong with her.
0:05:25 > 0:05:27because her mother had to cope without servants.
0:05:27 > 0:05:35The Edwardian era, in many ways, was very, very class structured.
0:05:35 > 0:05:38Very much the case of the middle classes living with servants,
0:05:38 > 0:05:40with people making fires and all that kind of thing.
0:05:40 > 0:05:44So the whole of the change that we saw in the Second World War,
0:05:44 > 0:05:47in the way the country became much more social democratic, didn't
0:05:47 > 0:05:51happen in the First World War.
0:05:51 > 0:05:56There was a sort of slow fading out, but it was a long, long process.
0:05:56 > 0:06:01So when you were growing up, were your parents very hands
0:06:01 > 0:06:03on or did they have help and servants as well?
0:06:03 > 0:06:07My parents, because my mother worked full-time, my parents had one house
0:06:07 > 0:06:12keeper who was about 20, a young woman from Battersea,
0:06:12 > 0:06:15across the river.
0:06:15 > 0:06:18And they also had occasional members of her family who came in and helped
0:06:18 > 0:06:21planning parties and so on.
0:06:21 > 0:06:22We were very close to them.
0:06:22 > 0:06:25They were my other parents, really.
0:06:25 > 0:06:28They were probably more hands-on than my mother and father were.
0:06:28 > 0:06:33Particularly my mother, because my father was fond of children.
0:06:33 > 0:06:37But he have the view of his time, which is that you didn't have
0:06:37 > 0:06:39much to do with them in any physical sense.
0:06:39 > 0:06:42You wouldn't have dreamt of changing a nappy or even dressing them.
0:06:42 > 0:06:45But what you would do is have serious conversations with them.
0:06:45 > 0:06:48As they grew up you would actually talk to them about politics, life,
0:06:48 > 0:06:50religion, whatever it might be.
0:06:50 > 0:06:54But not much before you were about 10 or 11.
0:06:54 > 0:06:57So how often did you see your parents during the day?
0:06:57 > 0:06:58If they were both working.
0:06:58 > 0:06:59Hardly at all.
0:06:59 > 0:07:04It was a very sort of arranged routine.
0:07:04 > 0:07:08If I got back from school in time, I would have tea with them.
0:07:08 > 0:07:12That was a another sacred occasion lasting half
0:07:12 > 0:07:13an hour at 4pm or 4.30pm.
0:07:13 > 0:07:17With crumpets in the winter and scones in the summer.
0:07:17 > 0:07:21But that was the sort of high moment of childish eating,
0:07:21 > 0:07:24and then I would not stay for dinner.
0:07:24 > 0:07:28Dinner was something that grown-ups had.
0:07:28 > 0:07:31We had a high tea at 5pm and then we were in bed by 7pm.
0:07:31 > 0:07:35And the idea of going to bed at 10pm, 11pm,
0:07:35 > 0:07:37which is what my own grandchildren do, would be unthinkable
0:07:37 > 0:07:40in that way.
0:07:40 > 0:07:42Also, maybe because it's worth adding, it's quite
0:07:42 > 0:07:44interesting to add it...
0:07:44 > 0:07:48The other great feature of my childhood was that
0:07:48 > 0:07:53I was extremely adventurous and during the war, when my parents'
0:07:53 > 0:07:57house was was bombed, it split.
0:07:57 > 0:08:01It was a Georgian house in Cheyne Walk.
0:08:01 > 0:08:04Reflecting my mother's success, I suppose -
0:08:04 > 0:08:06it can't have been a cheap house to buy.
0:08:06 > 0:08:09But Cheyne Walk with right along the river, sitting
0:08:09 > 0:08:13in the heart of London, and it was bombed quite a lot.
0:08:13 > 0:08:15And I remember this particular occasion.
0:08:15 > 0:08:18The house, it didn't fall down but it split,
0:08:18 > 0:08:20it cracked down the middle.
0:08:20 > 0:08:23The other thing we did, I used to climb all over the house,
0:08:23 > 0:08:24picking up shrapnel.
0:08:24 > 0:08:26I loved doing that!
0:08:26 > 0:08:28When my parents weren't watching.
0:08:28 > 0:08:30the house was a Georgian house, four stories high.
0:08:30 > 0:08:34And it had a lot of little terraces - not terraces, little flat roofs.
0:08:34 > 0:08:38And you'd have to go and collect the shrapnel from the flat roofs,
0:08:38 > 0:08:40otherwise it would begin to burn its way through.
0:08:40 > 0:08:41I loved doing that.
0:08:41 > 0:08:45I spent quite a lot of time sitting on the roof as well, of this house,
0:08:45 > 0:08:47looking at the Thames below.
0:08:47 > 0:08:51Eventually I learnt how to climb under the bridges across the Thames.
0:08:51 > 0:08:57I used to watch the Blitz from those metal, I suppose supports,
0:08:57 > 0:09:00you'd call them, under Chelsea Bridge and the
0:09:00 > 0:09:04Royal Albert Bridge, which was already shaking a bit,
0:09:04 > 0:09:06because it was a very delicate bridge.
0:09:06 > 0:09:09And I loved doing that.
0:09:09 > 0:09:11Did your parents know you were doing that?
0:09:11 > 0:09:12Of course not.
0:09:12 > 0:09:13I thoroughly enjoyed the war.
0:09:13 > 0:09:15That's an awful thing to say.
0:09:15 > 0:09:20I'm talking about being nine or 10. But I did thoroughly enjoy it,
0:09:20 > 0:09:23I did find it very exciting and I quite often would escape,
0:09:23 > 0:09:27long after my parents were asleep, and walk around and walk over
0:09:27 > 0:09:31to the bridges and sit underneath them and then come back.
0:09:31 > 0:09:39Then life got more exciting after all that because my parents
0:09:44 > 0:09:47There is reason social Democrat because I refused to go to private
0:09:47 > 0:09:53school. I was six or seven. I was a little school called Mrs Spencer's
0:09:53 > 0:09:59school. One of those places like private school, a nice school with
0:09:59 > 0:10:04middle-class parents and clean uniforms. Which I could not stand!
0:10:04 > 0:10:11What did you not like? I was already, I learned from parents to
0:10:11 > 0:10:15hate class. I hated class. Around the corner from where we lived,
0:10:15 > 0:10:20there was a big council estate which is still there, at the end of
0:10:20 > 0:10:28Chelsea. That council estate became the students of a very old Victorian
0:10:28 > 0:10:38state school. Church of England school. It was called... Saint
0:10:38 > 0:10:43Peter's church school. Anglican school. I went there because my
0:10:43 > 0:10:47mother's housekeeper, aged 19 or 20, her parents had sent their children
0:10:47 > 0:10:53there. It was a school that appealed to me so I went there, Alan told my
0:10:53 > 0:10:57mother I did not wish her to introduce herself to them. That was
0:10:57 > 0:11:04fine. I always went down the stairs to the basement. Some of my fellow
0:11:04 > 0:11:11students, pupils, primary school, they always thought I was Amy's.
0:11:11 > 0:11:14Because that is where she lived and I always thought that way so we
0:11:14 > 0:11:19didn't have problems about being the daughter of a famous author. Not
0:11:19 > 0:11:22that that ever came up!
0:11:22 > 0:11:24Then life got more exciting after all that because my parents
0:11:24 > 0:11:26had a sort of long light of agony.
0:11:26 > 0:11:28In which they had learnt that they were probably
0:11:28 > 0:11:34on the Gestapo black list.
0:11:34 > 0:11:36I think I'm right in saying that my parents, both
0:11:36 > 0:11:37of them were Christians.
0:11:37 > 0:11:40I think they were the only Christian married couple,
0:11:40 > 0:11:42because there were many Jewish married couples on the
0:11:42 > 0:11:43on Gestapo black list.
0:11:43 > 0:11:45And I've got the page which they were on.
0:11:45 > 0:11:48The reason I know about that is because my parents,
0:11:48 > 0:11:50my mother's name was Brittain and my father's name
0:11:50 > 0:11:52was Catlin and so inevitably they were in the same
0:11:52 > 0:11:56group as Churchill.
0:11:56 > 0:11:59And that meant that all the popular newspapers had to have that picture
0:11:59 > 0:12:01of Churchill's name in that list.
0:12:01 > 0:12:03But fortunately, it included both my parents as well.
0:12:03 > 0:12:07And what was key about that was that my mother was a conscientious
0:12:07 > 0:12:09objector after the First World War.
0:12:09 > 0:12:13She became a pacifist.
0:12:13 > 0:12:16She'd lost every young man in her family, including her brother
0:12:16 > 0:12:20and her fiancee, and she became absolutely determined
0:12:20 > 0:12:23and my mother was determined, she was very determined,
0:12:23 > 0:12:28She was right, she wouldn't move.
0:12:28 > 0:12:31And so they decided, my parents decided after a long conversation,
0:12:31 > 0:12:34they very high minded people I should say, that although they
0:12:34 > 0:12:36wouldn't leave themselves, because they would immediately -
0:12:36 > 0:12:39my mother in particular - be accused of fleeing.
0:12:39 > 0:12:42The author of Mrs Miniver, Jan Struther, also fled.
0:12:42 > 0:12:47Although hers was also a book all about the British
0:12:47 > 0:12:48in the Second World War.
0:12:48 > 0:12:52But my mother was made of sterner stuff so she wasn't going to flee.
0:12:52 > 0:12:54And having decided not to, my father having decided not to,
0:12:54 > 0:13:00either, they decided that it was not fair of them to keep my brother
0:13:00 > 0:13:03and me in Britain to face the probable killing
0:13:03 > 0:13:05of their parents.
0:13:05 > 0:13:08People forget now that in 1940, up until about the summer before
0:13:08 > 0:13:11the Battle of Britain, there was a general belief
0:13:11 > 0:13:14that this was going to be...
0:13:14 > 0:13:17There was going to be an invasion and that we might well
0:13:17 > 0:13:18have lost that invasion.
0:13:18 > 0:13:20They sent you and your brother to America, didn't they?
0:13:20 > 0:13:22They sent us to America.
0:13:22 > 0:13:24So it wasn't just an evacuation out into the country?
0:13:24 > 0:13:25No, no, no.
0:13:25 > 0:13:27On the other side of the world?
0:13:27 > 0:13:29Well, we got a telegram, I remember, which said,
0:13:29 > 0:13:31send us your children.
0:13:31 > 0:13:35To, of all places, Minnesota.
0:13:35 > 0:13:37And the great thing about that was that most
0:13:37 > 0:13:41all of the other children that were evacuated to America
0:13:41 > 0:13:45were evacuated to either work colleagues or friends,
0:13:45 > 0:13:47who were also very much sort of New England,
0:13:47 > 0:13:49very European-minded and so forth and so on.
0:13:49 > 0:13:55Minnesota was something else again.
0:13:55 > 0:14:00I remember when I first got there, a state which has a very substantial
0:14:00 > 0:14:03number of Scandinavian and German migrants,
0:14:03 > 0:14:06I was seen as rather dangerous, I mean, what was I doing?
0:14:06 > 0:14:08Almost like a spy or a reverse spy.
0:14:08 > 0:14:11Minnesota was certainly not very keen.
0:14:11 > 0:14:12Were they isolationist?
0:14:12 > 0:14:15I mean, it's obviously before America was in the war.
0:14:15 > 0:14:16No.
0:14:16 > 0:14:24Minnesota under Hubert Humphrey, who was the governor of Minnesota,
0:14:24 > 0:14:26who was a distinctly liberal-minded and internationally-minded young
0:14:26 > 0:14:27man, famous throughout America.
0:14:27 > 0:14:30He was the most distinguished Democrat around.
0:14:30 > 0:14:34They weren't isolationist, what they were, they were sort
0:14:34 > 0:14:38of left wing but keeping out of it.
0:14:38 > 0:14:43They didn't really want to join the war, they weren't keen on it.
0:14:43 > 0:14:46But they weren't, in any sense, what one might call Trump-ites.
0:14:46 > 0:14:47They weren't right wing Americans.
0:14:47 > 0:14:51And how did their attitude change towards you after Pearl Harbor?
0:14:51 > 0:14:53Dramatically.
0:14:53 > 0:14:55Well, they were always very sweet to me.
0:14:55 > 0:14:59By this time I was 10.
0:14:59 > 0:15:02And so I was known as the little English girl or the little
0:15:02 > 0:15:03evacuee or whatever it was.
0:15:03 > 0:15:07I was treated in a sort of idealised way.
0:15:07 > 0:15:12Which was very sweet of them.
0:15:12 > 0:15:15I went to a nice school and had lots of friends and we went climbing
0:15:15 > 0:15:17along the Mississippi and so forth.
0:15:17 > 0:15:18Had a lovely time, actually.
0:15:18 > 0:15:20And it was a great place to be.
0:15:20 > 0:15:21And I was always treated very well.
0:15:21 > 0:15:25But after Pearl Harbor I became a heroine and therefore I was asked
0:15:25 > 0:15:32to actually present a sheaf of flowers to Lady Halifax.
0:15:32 > 0:15:34Lord Halifax, who had been a well-known appeaser
0:15:34 > 0:15:36before the war, had become ambassador to America.
0:15:36 > 0:15:38It's a very distinguished position to hold.
0:15:38 > 0:15:42And his wife, in the best English style, walked around the country
0:15:42 > 0:15:45dishing out flowers to people and shaking their hands and putting
0:15:45 > 0:15:46up the flag and things like that.
0:15:46 > 0:15:50She behaved very properly.
0:15:50 > 0:15:57And I was therefore specially chosen to present him with flowers,
0:15:57 > 0:16:00which I deeply resented, because I knew that the Halifaxes
0:16:00 > 0:16:01were conservative.
0:16:01 > 0:16:03By this time I was very far gone in politics.
0:16:03 > 0:16:04But I was polite.
0:16:04 > 0:16:07At least I was polite, I wasn't particularly friendly,
0:16:07 > 0:16:08so I stayed in America...
0:16:08 > 0:16:10But that wasn't your only starring role, potentially, was it?
0:16:10 > 0:16:13Because you also were almost the star of National Velvet.
0:16:13 > 0:16:18Yes, that's correct.
0:16:18 > 0:16:21The film critics of America in each region were asked to put forward
0:16:21 > 0:16:26the names of people that might have been the hero in National Velvet.
0:16:26 > 0:16:28And I remember they had to be blonde.
0:16:28 > 0:16:30They had to be good at riding.
0:16:30 > 0:16:32They had to be around the age of 12.
0:16:32 > 0:16:36They had to know how to jump fences.
0:16:36 > 0:16:39They had to be sort of a perfect little model of what one might think
0:16:39 > 0:16:43National Velvet is all about.
0:16:43 > 0:16:46And I was put forward by the middle west states.
0:16:46 > 0:16:51It was Elizabeth Taylor who pipped you to the post?
0:16:51 > 0:16:54Elizabeth Taylor was very famous already.
0:16:54 > 0:16:57Her mother was in California with her so she had the exceptional
0:16:57 > 0:17:01advantage of having a mother who is very familiar with the whole
0:17:01 > 0:17:04of the Hollywood scene, and got her daughter to come,
0:17:04 > 0:17:08and she was a very pretty, handsome little girl and a good
0:17:08 > 0:17:13rider and all the other things.
0:17:13 > 0:17:14So she did pip me to the post.
0:17:14 > 0:17:16Did you meet her during the auditions?
0:17:16 > 0:17:18I did meet her but only that.
0:17:18 > 0:17:19I shook her hands.
0:17:19 > 0:17:22She was already a very good looking girl, but still a girl,
0:17:22 > 0:17:23a child, not yet a grown up.
0:17:23 > 0:17:26But a good actress and very carefully thinking through
0:17:26 > 0:17:27all the things she did.
0:17:27 > 0:17:30And I had to say, for the rest of my life, one of the great
0:17:30 > 0:17:33pleasures of my life, I think, thank God I didn't
0:17:33 > 0:17:34actually get that role.
0:17:34 > 0:17:35So we then got into...
0:17:35 > 0:17:37My parents tried to bring me home.
0:17:37 > 0:17:43Now, we must talk...
0:17:43 > 0:17:45On the way back, there was an incident, wasn't
0:17:45 > 0:17:47there, you were attacked by a group of sailors?
0:17:47 > 0:17:48Yes, that's right.
0:17:48 > 0:17:49It was a a Portuguese ship.
0:17:49 > 0:17:50Portugal was neutral.
0:17:50 > 0:17:54So it was one of the very few countries whose ships could carry
0:17:54 > 0:17:56people from the aggressor nations, as they were thought of being,
0:17:56 > 0:18:00whether it was Germany on the one side or UK and France on the other.
0:18:00 > 0:18:03And that meant that there was a very, very limited choice.
0:18:03 > 0:18:07You couldn't go back in a military convoy,
0:18:07 > 0:18:09that was limited to people who were actually capable
0:18:09 > 0:18:12of being combat soldiers or sailors when they got back.
0:18:12 > 0:18:15My brother went back in a military convoy and then joined the RAF.
0:18:15 > 0:18:16He was older than I was.
0:18:16 > 0:18:18But I couldn't have gone on the military convoy,
0:18:18 > 0:18:21they wouldn't have let me go.
0:18:21 > 0:18:24So my parents found this ship, I think through Thomas Cook's,
0:18:24 > 0:18:26which went to Lisbon, it didn't go to Britain.
0:18:26 > 0:18:30And we then found a great friend called Rosemary who's been my friend
0:18:30 > 0:18:33from then almost till now.
0:18:33 > 0:18:37But she died before me, I'm afraid.
0:18:37 > 0:18:41And we then had, we were surrounded by sailors.
0:18:41 > 0:18:46After the Azores, where we stopped, also by soldiers,
0:18:46 > 0:18:48because it was turned into a troopship, for the last part.
0:18:48 > 0:18:51We had a cyclone, which practically killed us.
0:18:51 > 0:18:54At one point, the captain almost decided to give up,
0:18:54 > 0:18:58because the cyclone was very strong indeed.
0:18:58 > 0:19:03And then we had this group of sailors, I don't know
0:19:03 > 0:19:05whether they were military sailors or not, but anyway, they had decided
0:19:05 > 0:19:07to attack us in our cabin.
0:19:07 > 0:19:09And we fought like, we fought like cats to get
0:19:09 > 0:19:11out, my friend and I.
0:19:11 > 0:19:14We weren't terribly frightened, just frighteningly angry.
0:19:14 > 0:19:17Anyway, we got out, and then we were running
0:19:17 > 0:19:22down the corridors, and genius struck us both,
0:19:22 > 0:19:27my friend Rosemary and me, and we decided that the one thing
0:19:27 > 0:19:31that the Portuguese would not dare to find us in was a Gents.
0:19:31 > 0:19:32So we rushed into a Gents, locked the door, stayed
0:19:32 > 0:19:36there for a very long time, and then finally, you know,
0:19:36 > 0:19:38several hours, and finally left, and after that we decided
0:19:38 > 0:19:40we were too obvious.
0:19:40 > 0:19:44Too obvious potential victims.
0:19:44 > 0:19:48So what we did was we then kitted out one of the lifeboats
0:19:48 > 0:19:51on the top deck with, you know, a mixture of tarpaulin
0:19:51 > 0:19:53and everything we could find.
0:19:53 > 0:19:57And that's where we stayed for the next three days,
0:19:57 > 0:20:01every night, as soon as it got dark, after dinner.
0:20:01 > 0:20:07We climbed up to the top shelf, got into this lifeboat,
0:20:07 > 0:20:09covered it with tarpaulins, couldn't be seen to be
0:20:09 > 0:20:14where we were, kept reasonably warm.
0:20:14 > 0:20:17An awful lot of sea decided to beat us on the top,
0:20:17 > 0:20:18but that's where we stayed.
0:20:18 > 0:20:20And so we escaped further attention.
0:20:20 > 0:20:23That sounds like it was a very frightening incident.
0:20:23 > 0:20:26I mean, that's the attempted sexual assault of a child, isn't it?
0:20:26 > 0:20:27That's what we're talking about.
0:20:27 > 0:20:31Of course, we weren't even teenagers yet.
0:20:31 > 0:20:36I guess, I think I was nine.
0:20:36 > 0:20:38But no, forgive me.
0:20:38 > 0:20:40Well, 12 or 13.
0:20:40 > 0:20:45Yes, 12, more like 12, but still, a young 12.
0:20:45 > 0:20:47We were blondes, which I suppose made us rather irresistible.
0:20:47 > 0:20:49Did you tell anybody about it?
0:20:49 > 0:20:50No, absolutely not.
0:20:50 > 0:20:51Why not?
0:20:51 > 0:20:54Omerta.
0:20:54 > 0:20:59You know, the central understanding of a child
0:20:59 > 0:21:02who is growing into a teenager, in those days, particularly,
0:21:02 > 0:21:03was that you fought for yourself.
0:21:03 > 0:21:07We'd been for three years on our own.
0:21:07 > 0:21:10Well, I don't know about Rosemary, I had anyway, except for my brother,
0:21:10 > 0:21:12and then once he went back to Britain, I was
0:21:12 > 0:21:14entirely on my own.
0:21:14 > 0:21:21I was just used to fighting for myself.
0:21:21 > 0:21:24Looking after myself, ever since the shrapnel days conveyed had been the
0:21:24 > 0:21:28same story. When we got back to Britain, even that was a long story
0:21:28 > 0:21:33that I will make it very brief. We got landed in Lisbon to catch the
0:21:33 > 0:21:35plane that was actually the plane that was shot down with Lesley
0:21:35 > 0:21:40Howard on board, and all planes were stopped, because they were wide open
0:21:40 > 0:21:46to being shot at. And that meant that we, and by we I mean the other
0:21:46 > 0:21:52children who were now on the boat, as well as myself, we all decided,
0:21:52 > 0:21:57well, we got bored stiff, rosemary and I, we were both a sort of
0:21:57 > 0:22:01adventurous pair, so we actually ran away to Lisbon. And what was funny
0:22:01 > 0:22:06about Lisbon, we stayed in what I suppose you would call the baggage
0:22:06 > 0:22:11room, and we jumped off when we got to Lisbon, from being not seen, and
0:22:11 > 0:22:16fled into the city, and that turned out to be full of spies. There were
0:22:16 > 0:22:21lots and lots of people. Do remember there was a famous actor called
0:22:21 > 0:22:31Conrad fight, it will always -- who always wore a monocle, and every
0:22:31 > 0:22:38film's idea of what a spider looks like. When we got to Lisbon, it was
0:22:38 > 0:22:44full of Conrads. There was British ones, German ones, most were
0:22:44 > 0:22:48probably German, and we finally got dumped by the students we had met up
0:22:48 > 0:22:51to in Lisbon who had shown a surround the city, because they got
0:22:51 > 0:22:59scared, because there was a very strong secret police group. So we
0:22:59 > 0:23:02knew that sooner or later, our friends who were very sweet and
0:23:02 > 0:23:07bought us food and things, would probably be in terrible trouble, and
0:23:07 > 0:23:11then radio programmes in Portuguese much we didn't understand, which
0:23:11 > 0:23:14said a couple of British have disappeared, and we don't know what
0:23:14 > 0:23:18to do with them. So they explain to us rather tearfully they would have
0:23:18 > 0:23:25to give us up, and then left us on the front porch of the rather
0:23:25 > 0:23:30surprisingly the editor of the voice of Lisbon newspaper, who turned out
0:23:30 > 0:23:34innovatively to be a friend of my father's, but I didn't know anything
0:23:34 > 0:23:39about that, he hasn't told me, and he had no idea I was in Lisbon
0:23:39 > 0:23:43anyway, were supposed to be in detention in Estoril, the famous
0:23:43 > 0:23:48royal capital. Anyway, we got back from Portugal, to England, and found
0:23:48 > 0:23:53it rather exciting, if a little bit dreary. And within resumed a
0:23:53 > 0:24:00different kind of life. I then got inevitably back to Saint Paul's, and
0:24:00 > 0:24:03yielded to my parents finally that I couldn't go back to the local
0:24:03 > 0:24:07elementary school. By this time it was secondary anyway. So I went to
0:24:07 > 0:24:10St Paul's, and then stayed there for the next few years, very good
0:24:10 > 0:24:16school, wonderful academic challenge. Lots of very nice girls,
0:24:16 > 0:24:19lots of brilliant Jewish girls, who were the children of people who had
0:24:19 > 0:24:25been various refugees from Germany. St Paul's appealed to them because
0:24:25 > 0:24:29it had a very strong musical tradition, including just a holster
0:24:29 > 0:24:36and his daughter --
0:24:41 > 0:24:44and his daughter -- to Fuller. We whizzed through school, nothing very
0:24:44 > 0:24:48special about that, I decided I didn't want to do the equivalent
0:24:48 > 0:24:52available is.
0:24:52 > 0:25:00So I left school when I was 17, I never took A-levels.
0:25:01 > 0:25:04and got it so when I got invited to go to Oxford.
0:25:04 > 0:25:06Towards the end of the study of students there I was outraged.
0:25:06 > 0:25:09I came to the conclusion that this was my mother's
0:25:09 > 0:25:11influence so suddenly,
0:25:11 > 0:25:13I was called in to see the principal Dame Janet,
0:25:13 > 0:25:16who was a wonderful very far left wing scientific lady,
0:25:16 > 0:25:17and I remember going up and saying.
0:25:17 > 0:25:25and I remember going up and saying,
0:25:25 > 0:25:28the first thing I said was I don't want your
0:25:28 > 0:25:30bloody scholarship, now
0:25:30 > 0:25:33nine out of ten would have said that I don't want you.
0:25:33 > 0:25:35But she did.
0:25:35 > 0:25:38She said, Come now tell me why I was so angry.
0:25:38 > 0:25:41So I said I am angry because I cannot bear this use
0:25:41 > 0:25:43of an influence or words to it.
0:25:43 > 0:25:44You know my politics don't you.
0:25:44 > 0:25:47What makes you think I would accept salary as the reason
0:25:47 > 0:25:49of their parents being well now.
0:25:49 > 0:25:57So that silenced me. We became great friends. So I became and had what
0:25:57 > 0:26:01they now call a gap year. I worked as a waitress in Whitley Bay in
0:26:01 > 0:26:05Northumberland, because I wanted to know the North, and I wanted to get
0:26:05 > 0:26:10to know what it was like to have no advantages at all. It was like back
0:26:10 > 0:26:14to Christchurch school, really. So I worked for a while at first there,
0:26:14 > 0:26:21and then I worked on a farm. At that time I did find out a lot about the
0:26:21 > 0:26:24north-east of England, I got to know it well. I remember, because I was
0:26:24 > 0:26:28always hungry, there was a very nice railway marshalling officer who
0:26:28 > 0:26:32always gave me sponge cakes to eat, which was nice. And in Whitley Bay,
0:26:32 > 0:26:39all we ever had to eat was chips. Chips and T.And have you decided on
0:26:39 > 0:26:43a political career at that stage? Delie I was already long engaged in
0:26:43 > 0:26:50it. I joined the Labour Party on my 16th birthday, which is as young as
0:26:50 > 0:26:56you are supposed tojoint.View became an MP relatively young,
0:26:56 > 0:27:02elected in your 30s, 1964. What is it like being a young woman MP in
0:27:02 > 0:27:10the 1960s House of Commons?Well, part of it was lovely,
0:27:11 > 0:27:13part of it was lovely, because Labour was going strong, and I was
0:27:13 > 0:27:16so excited by the National Health Service and all the things that came
0:27:16 > 0:27:24with it.
0:27:24 > 0:27:27It was a wonderful, wonderful time to be in politics
0:27:27 > 0:27:29because whether we did or leave it there.
0:27:29 > 0:27:30I did.
0:27:30 > 0:27:32You saw this new society being built before your eyes.
0:27:32 > 0:27:33You were part of it.
0:27:33 > 0:27:34It was wonderfully exciting.
0:27:34 > 0:27:37Were you ambitious when you were in the Commons,
0:27:37 > 0:27:39were you one of those employees that arrived thinking as soon
0:27:39 > 0:27:45as the opportunity comes.
0:27:45 > 0:27:49Not really I don't think, partly because I had a seat in Hitchin
0:27:49 > 0:27:52which had always been Conservative and I'd spent an awful lot of time
0:27:52 > 0:27:57on it, and one of the great things about that too was that I spent
0:27:57 > 0:28:00an awful lot of time in the new town of Stevenage, which was one
0:28:00 > 0:28:02of the biggest parts of the new constituency
0:28:02 > 0:28:03a very big constituency.
0:28:03 > 0:28:07And I had the great pleasure of growing up alongside my town.
0:28:07 > 0:28:09So as Stevenage grew into being a grown-up town, having
0:28:09 > 0:28:16been really a very small town to begin with and then
0:28:16 > 0:28:20developed hugely for a quarter of a million people,
0:28:20 > 0:28:23I also had a lot to do with I more than most employees do
0:28:23 > 0:28:26because I was always being involved in legal changes or structural
0:28:26 > 0:28:27changes or whatever that meant.
0:28:27 > 0:28:29When I gave my first speech
0:28:29 > 0:28:36in the House of Commons it was actually about international
0:28:37 > 0:28:40finance, because I was blowed if I was to be identified
0:28:40 > 0:28:41as a young woman politician.
0:28:41 > 0:28:42I got a lot of...
0:28:42 > 0:28:44A sort of a mixture of surprise and patronage
0:28:44 > 0:28:45from the Conservatives.
0:28:45 > 0:28:50And a bit of mixed feelings from the trade union members
0:28:50 > 0:28:52of the Labour Party, who saw me as odd, I suppose.
0:28:52 > 0:28:55But the difficult one is mostly to do with elderly Tories
0:28:55 > 0:28:57who thought it was odd to have a young woman anyway.
0:28:57 > 0:29:01And I always remember a famous case and the bells ringing in the house
0:29:01 > 0:29:06from when I was running back and, you know, they were ringing
0:29:06 > 0:29:09for a vote and I had no idea what the vote was about, just
0:29:09 > 0:29:11doing a meeting.
0:29:11 > 0:29:13So I seized my pair.
0:29:13 > 0:29:16You always have somebody of another party that you pair with a sweet man
0:29:16 > 0:29:18And I said to him, what's the vote about?
0:29:18 > 0:29:20Don't bother yourself a bit, I said.
0:29:20 > 0:29:21Look, I've got a vote.
0:29:21 > 0:29:27Tell me.
0:29:27 > 0:29:30So he finally said very reluctantly, he actually patted me on the head
0:29:30 > 0:29:32and said, my dear, don't bother your pretty
0:29:32 > 0:29:33little head about it.
0:29:33 > 0:29:35It was the first bill for legalizing homosexual
0:29:35 > 0:29:42relations between adults.
0:29:42 > 0:29:53He found the very idea of telling me appalling! Very sweet man.
0:29:53 > 0:29:55appalling! Very sweet man.You were talking about things that they would
0:29:55 > 0:30:00not expect a young female MP to talk about. You caught the eye of Harold
0:30:00 > 0:30:04Wilson and the leadership of the Labour Party. Andy Roddick Cabinet
0:30:04 > 0:30:09Minister but then a relatively short space of time. Secretary of State
0:30:09 > 0:30:15for prices? Are not quite sure, what would that we in the equivalent
0:30:15 > 0:30:20government?
0:30:22 > 0:30:27government?Harold Wilson is underestimated.
0:30:27 > 0:30:35I've never seen any other politician of seniority who is completely
0:30:35 > 0:30:36unaffected by color, race, gender, religion.
0:30:36 > 0:30:39He was a true academic who chose people we thought were good.
0:30:39 > 0:30:40But he didn't.
0:30:40 > 0:30:43He wasn't the least bit influenced by factors other prime ministers
0:30:43 > 0:30:48are clearly affected by and he was casteless.
0:30:48 > 0:30:52He is a wonderful man in many ways but he is quite difficult
0:30:52 > 0:31:00to get close to, he kept himself rather privately and here
0:31:00 > 0:31:05If you look at his record you'll see that time and again...
0:31:05 > 0:31:14He was very open-minded for his time. Going back quickly to prices.
0:31:14 > 0:31:18Basically the whole economic structure at that time was based
0:31:18 > 0:31:22upon prices and incomes policy and the government position, which
0:31:22 > 0:31:26largely because it did not want to have unemployment... Its
0:31:26 > 0:31:29unemployment is the most dangerous thing it could be associated with
0:31:29 > 0:31:33and there was very little unemployment in those years, rather
0:31:33 > 0:31:37like now. It was associated very much indeed with inflation.
0:31:37 > 0:31:43Inflation was running at 18%. As we came out of the Heath government.
0:31:43 > 0:31:50Very high levels. The choice was for the government 's... Either letting
0:31:50 > 0:31:58inflation rise and using unemployment to stop it or, as
0:31:58 > 0:32:03Harold Wilson and Roy Jenkins did, to actually watch inflation and
0:32:03 > 0:32:09control that by prices. I was the person, the mug who had to make sure
0:32:09 > 0:32:13prices were acceptable to the trade unions. That is to say, prices would
0:32:13 > 0:32:18not exceed a level of inflation, would stay the same as the overall
0:32:18 > 0:32:20level. And you would then have to use every measure you could. The
0:32:20 > 0:32:27main measure was called fair prices. Everything Mark White with prices,
0:32:27 > 0:32:31we had signs made in the centres of cities, what is cheapest place to
0:32:31 > 0:32:35buy something... A huge amount of information to go with price
0:32:35 > 0:32:42control. Alongside me was Michael Foot, in charge of wages. As you can
0:32:42 > 0:32:46imagine, this curious hair. In charge of this whole system of
0:32:46 > 0:32:52trying to control the market. So that it could not just eat up
0:32:52 > 0:32:55unemployment as the only thing that could slow down.It worked quite
0:32:55 > 0:33:02well, actually. He also served with James Callaghan. You were Erik
0:33:02 > 0:33:06Compton entry about Harold Wilson. Portraying him as a much more
0:33:06 > 0:33:11radical figure. And people consider right now. How did those prime
0:33:11 > 0:33:17ministers compare?Jim was a great traditional Labour Party figure and
0:33:17 > 0:33:21he was close to the unions because they were essentially part of what
0:33:21 > 0:33:27it was to be Labour. Very nice thing about Jim, he was a very good man,
0:33:27 > 0:33:32very loving and I remember one of the things that he did that
0:33:32 > 0:33:39impressed me was he always left open the door of his carriage...
0:33:43 > 0:33:45as he went down to his constituency in south Wales.
0:33:45 > 0:33:49So people would come and talk to him and he would never close it.
0:33:49 > 0:33:51And so he would come sit there waiting and a steady
0:33:51 > 0:33:53trail of Welsh voters would walk up this train,
0:33:53 > 0:33:56knowing that they would get a welcome when they got
0:33:56 > 0:34:00to the other end.
0:34:00 > 0:34:06He was everybody's grandfather, he was a good man and I was very fond
0:34:06 > 0:34:10of him. I was closer to him than Harold, I admired Harold but I like
0:34:10 > 0:34:16Jim. And he was a man who was really concerned about families and what
0:34:16 > 0:34:23they could contribute in life. Once he said to me, he said, the day that
0:34:23 > 0:34:28he was elected as Prime Minister, I think Ted Bryn Hughes was the
0:34:28 > 0:34:32chairman of the Parliamentary party and he came in to tell him what had
0:34:32 > 0:34:37happened in the election. Of the Parliamentary party. Very unlike
0:34:37 > 0:34:46now. I will add a footnote, very important, both Harold and Jim, they
0:34:46 > 0:34:50were people who deeply believed in Parliament. They can be critical of
0:34:50 > 0:34:52it but there were Labour parliamentarians. They never took
0:34:52 > 0:34:59the view that Parliament must have the enemy of the Labour Party. It
0:34:59 > 0:35:02was undermining the elites. That is a new view which they did not share
0:35:02 > 0:35:10in any way. On the day that Jim was told he had been elected by a
0:35:10 > 0:35:13substantial majority, the first thing he said was, and I never went
0:35:13 > 0:35:21to university... And he never did. Left school at 15. Never went to any
0:35:21 > 0:35:26other form of higher education. But he so loved the idea that when he
0:35:26 > 0:35:29was Prime Minister, before that he was Chancellor of the Exchequer,
0:35:29 > 0:35:33every week or every couple of weeks he would go up to Nuffield College
0:35:33 > 0:35:39and have a seminar there with the dons who would talk to him about how
0:35:39 > 0:35:44to be the Chancellor of the Exchequer! He loved it. He got his
0:35:44 > 0:35:48education when he was already a senior minister.
0:35:48 > 0:35:50Did you consider yourself to be his successor?
0:35:50 > 0:35:51No.
0:35:51 > 0:35:53Were you ever thinking, I might be the leader?
0:35:53 > 0:35:56No, no not really.
0:35:56 > 0:35:58A lot of other people talked about you as a potential
0:35:58 > 0:35:59leader, didn't they?
0:35:59 > 0:36:01Oh yes.
0:36:01 > 0:36:04Later on, after I'd been in the Cabinet seven years they did,
0:36:04 > 0:36:05that's quite true and I stood against
0:36:05 > 0:36:07Michael Foot but I lost
0:36:07 > 0:36:11by about 20 plus.
0:36:11 > 0:36:14I didn't lose by a lot but I did lose.
0:36:14 > 0:36:16I didn't think I was quite good enough.
0:36:16 > 0:36:17Quite simply.
0:36:17 > 0:36:20And that's something that's changed with women.
0:36:20 > 0:36:25Maybe I think, looking back now, I wasn't as bad as I thought I was.
0:36:25 > 0:36:27But my parents had brought me up to have huge respect
0:36:27 > 0:36:29for the leaders of the Labour Party.
0:36:29 > 0:36:31They knew a lot of them and admired them.
0:36:31 > 0:36:34They thought that they were great men.
0:36:34 > 0:36:38All men, except for Ellen Wilkinson.
0:36:38 > 0:36:41Therefore, although I was never brought up
0:36:41 > 0:36:45that way by my parents, of all people.
0:36:45 > 0:36:49I came to believe in politics that I just wasn't good enough.
0:36:49 > 0:36:51Now if you'd say who was among women?
0:36:51 > 0:36:54I would have said Barbara Castle.
0:36:54 > 0:36:57She was probably too left wing to become easily
0:36:57 > 0:37:04the leader of the party but the extraordinary courage
0:37:04 > 0:37:07that she showed in places of strife, which was would have ended a lot
0:37:07 > 0:37:09of the unnecessary strikes and so forth that happened
0:37:09 > 0:37:11in that period of time, is a very brave thing
0:37:11 > 0:37:17for a woman of the left to do.
0:37:17 > 0:37:19And she did it, she fought for it, she stuck with it.
0:37:19 > 0:37:22But at the end of the day even people like Jim
0:37:22 > 0:37:23abandoned her because it
0:37:23 > 0:37:25went down very badly with the trade unions.
0:37:25 > 0:37:27Do you regret looking back that you felt perhaps
0:37:27 > 0:37:29you weren't good enough?
0:37:29 > 0:37:29Probably.
0:37:29 > 0:37:31Not very deeply.
0:37:31 > 0:37:36It doesn't upset me.
0:37:36 > 0:37:43I managed to build up... I remember Denis Healey talking about the
0:37:43 > 0:37:47hinterland, I build that up, including politically, because I
0:37:47 > 0:37:56have spent a lot of time nowadays working in other countries. Project
0:37:56 > 0:38:01Liberty, about bringing Eastern Europe into the European Union,
0:38:01 > 0:38:04which I have always been a passionate supporter. Looking
0:38:04 > 0:38:10around, I spent time in Russia and in Europe, almost all those working
0:38:10 > 0:38:14on the process of trying to get these countries within Europe as
0:38:14 > 0:38:20democratic countries and I found it very exciting and challenging. Even
0:38:20 > 0:38:27went as far as Moscow, I worked with Gorbachev's plans for a new
0:38:27 > 0:38:32constitution for Russia. I had a great... Also India and other
0:38:32 > 0:38:35places. It became more international.
0:38:35 > 0:38:371979, you lost your seat.
0:38:37 > 0:38:38Yes.
0:38:38 > 0:38:40And that must be a very difficult time
0:38:40 > 0:38:42for you because you suddenly found yourself outside of parliament.
0:38:42 > 0:38:45You'd been a really big figure in British politics, you've been
0:38:45 > 0:38:47a Cabinet Minister and you've been at the heart of
0:38:47 > 0:38:50the Labour government.
0:38:50 > 0:38:52And then within 18 months, two years you were out
0:38:52 > 0:38:55of the Labour Party altogether.
0:38:55 > 0:38:59Was Europe one of the big things that pushed you?
0:38:59 > 0:39:00People don't realise...
0:39:00 > 0:39:01There's a play running at
0:39:01 > 0:39:03the moment called Limehouse.
0:39:03 > 0:39:08In the Donmar theatre.
0:39:08 > 0:39:11And what's quite striking is that almost nobody...
0:39:11 > 0:39:14Most people put it down to me fighting the hard left.
0:39:14 > 0:39:17Well, I did fight the hard left but that wasn't
0:39:17 > 0:39:20the reason because the battle was still going on and it was this
0:39:20 > 0:39:22battle about whether we were fundamentally
0:39:22 > 0:39:26a parliamentary party, whether we wanted to include people
0:39:26 > 0:39:29into the Labour Party or among other things on cross-party positions
0:39:29 > 0:39:32like Europe and so forth, and I was already by this time
0:39:32 > 0:39:40a very passionate European.
0:39:42 > 0:39:48What I saw in 1979 was first of all that there would be a hard struggle
0:39:48 > 0:39:53and it was because Mrs Thatcher and Mr Heath were very different people,
0:39:53 > 0:39:57I knew Mr Heath very well and we shared a certain European passion
0:39:57 > 0:40:01that Mrs Thatcher did not know she had moments.She wanted the single
0:40:01 > 0:40:07market. That famous shot of her in matchup with all of those flags.The
0:40:07 > 0:40:14key thing was, she was a passionate, the begetter of the single market.
0:40:14 > 0:40:19She said to the Secretary-General of the European Community that the one
0:40:19 > 0:40:24thing she would accept as a step forward towards greater integrity
0:40:24 > 0:40:30and integration, excuse me, was precisely that it was going to be
0:40:30 > 0:40:33part of the single market. She always saw things in economic and
0:40:33 > 0:40:38commercial terms but having seen them that way, she became an
0:40:38 > 0:40:43enthusiastic champion of the single market and of course, she had at
0:40:43 > 0:40:50your right hand, the great maker, Lord Coe field, a civil servant, but
0:40:50 > 0:40:56one who Mrs Thatcher admired and often followed and he went out to
0:40:56 > 0:41:02build that single market and before the 70s, before the 1980s right, it
0:41:02 > 0:41:06was. I do find it extraordinary that we are thinking of leaving the stop
0:41:06 > 0:41:12it has been extremely useful to us.
0:41:12 > 0:41:13So you found the SDP.
0:41:13 > 0:41:16We have the Limehouse Declaration, the Gang of Four.
0:41:16 > 0:41:18September 1981.
0:41:18 > 0:41:21There's a byelection in Crosby in Merseyside and you become
0:41:21 > 0:41:26the first Member of Parliament to be elected for the SDP and we've got
0:41:26 > 0:41:30a little clip of that moment here.
0:41:30 > 0:41:35This is not for us a party, but a crusade and an attempt to find
0:41:35 > 0:41:38a democratic alternative to what we believe to be the growing
0:41:38 > 0:41:44extremism of politics in Britain.
0:41:44 > 0:41:47The move in the Labour Party towards the rejection
0:41:47 > 0:41:50of parliamentary democracy.
0:41:50 > 0:41:54A move in the Conservative Party to a level of unemployment that
0:41:54 > 0:42:00threatens the very social fabric of our society.
0:42:00 > 0:42:03And we want to thank, finally, the electors of the Crosby division,
0:42:03 > 0:42:10for giving us this opportunity to again put forward in this country
0:42:10 > 0:42:15a new democratic initiative.
0:42:15 > 0:42:18That's a moment of political history.
0:42:18 > 0:42:21Of course what a lot of people who perhaps don't know a lot
0:42:21 > 0:42:24about Merseyside may appreciate is that Crosby in the 1980s wasn't
0:42:24 > 0:42:26just a Conservative seat, it was a rock solid
0:42:26 > 0:42:29Conservative seat.
0:42:29 > 0:42:33There's was a 19,000 majority, I think, Graham Page had,
0:42:33 > 0:42:37the MP who died and whose death triggered the by-election.
0:42:37 > 0:42:40Did it seem to you that it was going to be this impossible task?
0:42:40 > 0:42:43But you just had to go for it because you're
0:42:43 > 0:42:45at the beginning of a new party?
0:42:45 > 0:42:49Or were you confident you were going to overturn that?
0:42:49 > 0:42:51If you're a new party, you build yourself up,
0:42:51 > 0:42:53by-election by by-election.
0:42:53 > 0:42:56The thing you have to be absolutely clear about is that
0:42:56 > 0:43:00if you are a leader of that party, one of the leaders,
0:43:00 > 0:43:01then it's your turn.
0:43:01 > 0:43:04The next one that comes up is yours.
0:43:04 > 0:43:07As it happened, I was rather lucky because my father's father had been
0:43:07 > 0:43:10a clergyman in Liverpool itself.
0:43:10 > 0:43:13Therefore my father was born in Liverpool and I had a collection,
0:43:13 > 0:43:15rather unexpectedly.
0:43:15 > 0:43:18But I thought it was so exciting because it was a strange mixture
0:43:18 > 0:43:22of very left wing in Waterloo and parts of old Liverpool
0:43:22 > 0:43:29and unspeakably posh golf playing in the areas that were close
0:43:29 > 0:43:33to Birkdale and Southport.
0:43:33 > 0:43:36The constituency was made up of these two totally different things.
0:43:36 > 0:43:38The two subjects that were really intense,
0:43:38 > 0:43:41One was the subject of...
0:43:41 > 0:43:44Here we go again, the grammar schools.
0:43:44 > 0:43:47Merchant Taylor was a famous private school.
0:43:47 > 0:43:51I was already identified very much because I'd been Secretary of State
0:43:51 > 0:43:59for Education for four years from 1975 to 1979.
0:43:59 > 0:44:02And I was a passionate pro-comprehensive.
0:44:02 > 0:44:04So this became a hugely...
0:44:04 > 0:44:06As you might imagine.
0:44:06 > 0:44:09Yes, because by that time Crosby, unusually perhaps, had a number
0:44:09 > 0:44:13of fee-paying schools, some of which had been grammar
0:44:13 > 0:44:15schools or direct grant schools.
0:44:15 > 0:44:18So there was kind of a resentment towards you, wasn't there?
0:44:18 > 0:44:24Because people felt they had lost their grammar schools.
0:44:24 > 0:44:25Because of the head teachers and so on.
0:44:25 > 0:44:27I didn't get rid of the grammar.
0:44:27 > 0:44:30Well, I did get rid of the grammar school but actually it took quite
0:44:30 > 0:44:34a long time to get there, but I was identified and always have
0:44:34 > 0:44:36been with the comprehensive school and I was passionate believer in it.
0:44:36 > 0:44:39I remember getting invited to the really very posh private
0:44:39 > 0:44:42schools of Crosby to sort of stand up to a fairly sharp
0:44:42 > 0:44:44set of questions.
0:44:44 > 0:44:47But Liverpool and Merseyside at that time was very clearly back to class
0:44:47 > 0:44:49structures because it had very posh parts of Merseyside
0:44:49 > 0:44:57and very poor parts.
0:44:58 > 0:45:00With a large gap between the two.
0:45:00 > 0:45:02That was what I knew about it.
0:45:02 > 0:45:06We fought some other things, we haven't got time to go into it.
0:45:06 > 0:45:09But one thing in particular in Crosby at that time
0:45:09 > 0:45:17that was central was corporal punishment and capital punishment.
0:45:18 > 0:45:21And so I also had huge battles about capital punishment,
0:45:21 > 0:45:22which was still allowed.
0:45:22 > 0:45:24And corporal punishment, mostly seen in schools.
0:45:24 > 0:45:26And therefore there were other issues, not just the issue
0:45:26 > 0:45:27of comprehensive schools.
0:45:27 > 0:45:30But it was a wonderfully friendly place.
0:45:30 > 0:45:33People might argue with you and pull your leg, they might call
0:45:33 > 0:45:34you all sorts of things.
0:45:34 > 0:45:37But it was a place that's great fun to be in.
0:45:37 > 0:45:38Great fun to work in.
0:45:38 > 0:45:42And at that point did you think the SDP was going to become a party
0:45:42 > 0:45:44of government and this was the beginning of a new party
0:45:44 > 0:45:47that wasn't just going to influence politics but you were actually
0:45:47 > 0:45:51going to be taking charge?
0:45:51 > 0:45:53Probably at some of the time, yes.
0:45:53 > 0:45:56Some of the time?
0:45:56 > 0:45:58And as we then ran into the sharp altercations about whether we merged
0:45:58 > 0:46:03with the Liberal Party.
0:46:03 > 0:46:06And, of course, those of us, like Bill and I,
0:46:06 > 0:46:09who were conscious of the fact that there was not room for several
0:46:09 > 0:46:12parties in the centre left, and of course that meant that we had
0:46:12 > 0:46:14to decide whether we would or wouldn't join the Liberals.
0:46:14 > 0:46:16We both felt the same way.
0:46:16 > 0:46:18I dont think David Owen ever did.
0:46:18 > 0:46:19But Bill and I did.
0:46:19 > 0:46:23We felt as if there's going to be a serious contention
0:46:23 > 0:46:26by parties at the centre left, then there had to be only one
0:46:26 > 0:46:29party and that's why we merged with the Liberals,
0:46:29 > 0:46:32who at that time under David Steel were very much in the same
0:46:32 > 0:46:34part of the country, so to speak, as one
0:46:34 > 0:46:36another as we were.
0:46:36 > 0:46:40What about the people who were still in the Labour Party
0:46:40 > 0:46:42who thought of themselves as being part of that social
0:46:42 > 0:46:43democratic centre left tradition?
0:46:43 > 0:46:47Well, a lot of them joined.
0:46:47 > 0:46:49We actually had a kind of amazing, huge flow in, rather
0:46:49 > 0:46:54like the Labour Party did when Jeremy Corbyn was elected.
0:46:54 > 0:46:57But the difference was that the Gang of Four were all clearly centre left
0:46:57 > 0:47:00and all clearly Parliamentary.
0:47:00 > 0:47:02They had all been Members of Parliament or Cabinet
0:47:02 > 0:47:04Ministers or whatever.
0:47:04 > 0:47:06So we didn't see ourselves as sort of an elite group.
0:47:06 > 0:47:13We saw ourselves as coming out of a long tradition,
0:47:13 > 0:47:15but with this particular factor, which I mentioned in that little
0:47:15 > 0:47:18bit that you had shown, of having to be Parliamentary
0:47:18 > 0:47:26and we always rejected the idea of having an elite.
0:47:27 > 0:47:31And now it is rather strange to me to see the Unite union backing a
0:47:31 > 0:47:36leader to get rid of Jeremy Corbyn, because, you know, that's not where
0:47:36 > 0:47:42it should be, and we would say no, the leader has been elected and if
0:47:42 > 0:47:45Jeremy Corbyn goes, it is because the party has decided to elect
0:47:45 > 0:47:50somebody else. But what will not do is to have it organised by one of
0:47:50 > 0:47:52the big organisations that support the Labour Party, I would say the
0:47:52 > 0:47:57same about the Conservative Party. Do you have a feeling of, this is
0:47:57 > 0:48:03where I came in, this is where I was years ago?It is a bit like that,
0:48:03 > 0:48:06the intensity of political feeling in the country, the level of things
0:48:06 > 0:48:10that have to be either held onto, like Compper heads of schools in my
0:48:10 > 0:48:16view, or they have to be advanced, like the NHS, are very great.
0:48:16 > 0:48:24I think that this was a lovely country, when it was a social
0:48:27 > 0:48:30democratic country, and I think for a long time, I will say
0:48:30 > 0:48:32this in respect of both John Major and Ted Heath,
0:48:32 > 0:48:34that they were both very clearly moderate Conservatives.
0:48:34 > 0:48:36Well, here's what John Major says today.
0:48:36 > 0:48:38And he speaks out in the most powerful terms,
0:48:38 > 0:48:39not least about Europe.
0:48:39 > 0:48:42So the funny thing about today's Conservative Party is it's as split
0:48:42 > 0:48:44as Labour's party was back in 1981, between different groups
0:48:44 > 0:48:48within the party, all of whom would see themselves as loyal to that
0:48:48 > 0:48:50party, but they can't be, because it cannot possibly
0:48:50 > 0:48:52comprehend such a huge range of views and call them
0:48:52 > 0:48:54all members of the same party.
0:48:54 > 0:48:56We've had an interesting time, to say the least,
0:48:56 > 0:48:59this last 20 years.
0:48:59 > 0:49:01We've had the New Labour years, we've had coalition
0:49:01 > 0:49:03under David Cameron.
0:49:03 > 0:49:05Now we're back to a Conservative government, though in very
0:49:05 > 0:49:08different circumstances.
0:49:08 > 0:49:12Where does that leave social democracy?
0:49:12 > 0:49:15I mean, you look at what's happened and you look at what's happened
0:49:15 > 0:49:17with the vote to leave the European Union, the election
0:49:17 > 0:49:24of Donald Trump in America, the rise of populism.
0:49:24 > 0:49:26Do social democrats have the answers to the questions that
0:49:26 > 0:49:28people have been asking?
0:49:28 > 0:49:28They have.
0:49:28 > 0:49:30It takes time for it to sink through.
0:49:30 > 0:49:34Let's take two examples.
0:49:34 > 0:49:39Donald Trump's already in so much trouble, not least...
0:49:39 > 0:49:44I mean, what's going to be key about that is what Congress discovers
0:49:44 > 0:49:45about the relationships with Russia.
0:49:45 > 0:49:48If they're as close as it looks as though it may be,
0:49:48 > 0:49:50then I frankly cannot see what future Trump has.
0:49:50 > 0:49:53It's an extraordinary situation for the leader of the second biggest
0:49:53 > 0:49:58democracy in the world to find himself arguing for a much closer
0:49:58 > 0:50:02relationship with one of the past enemies of that country,
0:50:02 > 0:50:06and no decent relationship at all with the other - China -
0:50:06 > 0:50:09where he made it clear that he doesn't accept the idea
0:50:09 > 0:50:15of a One China policy.
0:50:15 > 0:50:19So he's clearly a man who is, I think, very much at a loss.
0:50:19 > 0:50:23And then he looks to the social media to rescue him.
0:50:23 > 0:50:25And of course you can't have the social media
0:50:25 > 0:50:26rescue elected leaders
0:50:26 > 0:50:29of great democracies for a straightforward reason.
0:50:29 > 0:50:31Social media are the most easily hammered, mistreated system
0:50:31 > 0:50:37of communication that exists.
0:50:37 > 0:50:43So his dependence on Trump's triumphs, so to speak,
0:50:43 > 0:50:46in the area of social media really raise the whole question of
0:50:46 > 0:50:48whether social media and democracy are a convulation together.
0:50:48 > 0:50:50I think we have to make them so.
0:50:50 > 0:50:53I think we have to take steps to do something about that.
0:50:53 > 0:50:56But I think the only people likely to make such steps are people who do
0:50:56 > 0:50:58believe basically in equality, basically in equality
0:50:58 > 0:51:00of opportunity.
0:51:00 > 0:51:03And, in the end, something which is much fairer in economic
0:51:03 > 0:51:06terms than what we have in Britain today, which is becoming
0:51:06 > 0:51:13increasingly and quite rapidly more and more unequal.
0:51:13 > 0:51:16The other big cause you're talking about the whole way
0:51:16 > 0:51:18through is Europe and we had the European referendum
0:51:18 > 0:51:24and people voted to leave.
0:51:24 > 0:51:26They also got fed the most amazing diet of misrepresentation.
0:51:26 > 0:51:30I taught for 10 years in Harvard the story of the European Union.
0:51:30 > 0:51:31All right, it's mixed.
0:51:31 > 0:51:33I mean, I will readily say it's mixed.
0:51:33 > 0:51:37I don't think Mr Juncker is so easy to understand in Britain.
0:51:37 > 0:51:40I also think that there's a really serious need for greater democracy.
0:51:40 > 0:51:42It's easy to bring about, by the by.
0:51:42 > 0:51:44You only have to say that every commissioner should be
0:51:44 > 0:51:45elected, but we don't.
0:51:45 > 0:51:47We've never tried to do that in Britain.
0:51:47 > 0:51:49We're to blame, to some extent, for not having
0:51:49 > 0:51:50democratised the union.
0:51:50 > 0:51:53It's now possible to do that.
0:51:53 > 0:51:56And I think we could change it really quickly because I think
0:51:56 > 0:51:59there's a lot of support in Holland and Scandinavia and so on for it.
0:51:59 > 0:52:01Let me just add one other thing.
0:52:01 > 0:52:04Most of my life, I've been involved in international affairs,
0:52:04 > 0:52:06whether it's Russia or India or whatever it is,
0:52:06 > 0:52:07all over the world.
0:52:07 > 0:52:09I'm deeply scared now about what might happen.
0:52:09 > 0:52:15I hope I've proved to you I'm not a scary person.
0:52:15 > 0:52:23But when I see, for example, the fear in the Baltics of a gradual
0:52:23 > 0:52:25Russian intrusion, ending up with it trying to, in effect,
0:52:25 > 0:52:26half-colonise them.
0:52:26 > 0:52:34When I see in the Balkans, the situation of Greece,
0:52:34 > 0:52:36because I don't think that we thought through the European
0:52:36 > 0:52:37zone sensibly enough.
0:52:37 > 0:52:41And when, finally, I look at what's happening in, for example,
0:52:41 > 0:52:44Japan's fear about what North Korea might do if it begins to come
0:52:44 > 0:52:46within its own sphere.
0:52:46 > 0:52:49We talk so much in Europe, but we don't talk enough
0:52:49 > 0:52:52about the rest of the world, and we are now looking at some
0:52:52 > 0:52:54extremely frightening situations.
0:52:54 > 0:52:58And I weep for the fact that the United Kingdom,
0:52:58 > 0:53:01which I believe is a country which has had a remarkable past
0:53:01 > 0:53:04as a global country, with a remarkable sense
0:53:04 > 0:53:11of where we're all going, should now have done what it's done.
0:53:11 > 0:53:19And to do that in the teeth of the attitude of almost
0:53:19 > 0:53:22not all, but the great majority of people under the age of 35,
0:53:22 > 0:53:24having been effectively sold down the galley by elderly people
0:53:24 > 0:53:27like me, in their sort of 60s and 70s and 80s.
0:53:27 > 0:53:30Then I have to say that I think, as my grandson said to me very
0:53:30 > 0:53:32forcefully, he said, Grandma, your generation
0:53:32 > 0:53:37has betrayed mine, and I completely agree with him.
0:53:37 > 0:53:40Young people cannot understand what Europe was all about and would
0:53:40 > 0:53:43like to see it more democratic, would like to see it more open.
0:53:43 > 0:53:46But they haven't been listened to and we have therefore taken
0:53:46 > 0:53:48a decision which 48% of people voted in favour.
0:53:48 > 0:53:5152% against.
0:53:51 > 0:53:54But if you break it down into age groups, overwhelmingly most
0:53:54 > 0:53:58of the young voted to stay in Europe and mostly older to get out.
0:53:58 > 0:54:00That says an awful lot about what's wrong with us.
0:54:00 > 0:54:03But doesn't it all combine to create a crisis for social
0:54:03 > 0:54:04democrats like you?
0:54:04 > 0:54:07It's a crisis for everybody.
0:54:07 > 0:54:13It's a crisis for the people of Britain because what has stopped
0:54:13 > 0:54:16looking as though it's an international country is not me.
0:54:16 > 0:54:18Or David Owen or whatever.
0:54:18 > 0:54:24It's effectively, we have let ourselves be led,
0:54:24 > 0:54:27partly by a heavily biased study and campaign.
0:54:27 > 0:54:33We've let ourselves be led by the interests and purposes
0:54:33 > 0:54:37of older people, and interests is a key word here.
0:54:37 > 0:54:40And we've taken very little notice of the thousands of young people
0:54:40 > 0:54:43for whom the future is the future we've created, we the older
0:54:43 > 0:54:44have created for them.
0:54:44 > 0:54:46And that most of them, evidently from the vote,
0:54:46 > 0:54:50don't like and don't want to be part of.
0:54:50 > 0:54:51You've talked throughout our conversation about education
0:54:51 > 0:54:53in one form or another.
0:54:53 > 0:54:58Is that the legacy you're most proud of, do you think?
0:54:58 > 0:55:00Your time as Education Secretary and your championing
0:55:00 > 0:55:03of comprehensive education?
0:55:03 > 0:55:05I'm proud of comprehensive schools, and although people
0:55:05 > 0:55:07who watch won't all agree with this.
0:55:07 > 0:55:09Almost all the speeches I make throughout the country
0:55:09 > 0:55:12are followed by people who went to comprehensive schools
0:55:12 > 0:55:18and come up to me and say, I just want to let you know that
0:55:18 > 0:55:22I am the chairman of this business company, or I am one of the people
0:55:22 > 0:55:24who have directed a theatre or whatever it may be.
0:55:24 > 0:55:27There's a lot of feeling among people who went to comprehensive
0:55:27 > 0:55:29schools that they got the break they needed.
0:55:29 > 0:55:31People forget all the time that when we had grammar schools,
0:55:31 > 0:55:34I'm not saying they weren't good, they were in their way.
0:55:34 > 0:55:37But they only served about 10% of the population and the rest
0:55:37 > 0:55:39were sent to secondary modern schools, where they couldn't even
0:55:39 > 0:55:40get a sixth form education.
0:55:40 > 0:55:42Luckily now they are coming through.
0:55:42 > 0:55:45But if we go back to grammar schools, the schools may be good
0:55:45 > 0:55:48but there would be very few of them all.
0:55:48 > 0:55:50And I think the final point I want to make
0:55:50 > 0:55:52about education is that you have to educate your population
0:55:52 > 0:55:54for the world that's coming.
0:55:54 > 0:55:56The world that's coming will be one that will demand high
0:55:56 > 0:55:58technology understanding, high understanding of a numerate
0:55:58 > 0:56:01country and all the rest of it.
0:56:01 > 0:56:05That's why you have to have an education that serves
0:56:05 > 0:56:07almost all the people, not even the very carefully
0:56:07 > 0:56:09chosen small minority, which is never going to be enough
0:56:09 > 0:56:13for a modern country.
0:56:13 > 0:56:17If we could get the young Shirley Williams, who's just been
0:56:17 > 0:56:20for an audition to National Velvet, and bring her into the studio,
0:56:20 > 0:56:22what piece of advice would you give her?
0:56:22 > 0:56:26It all takes longer than you think.
0:56:26 > 0:56:29It requires you to learn to not only speak to people
0:56:29 > 0:56:30but to listen to them.
0:56:30 > 0:56:31Leadership is participation now.
0:56:31 > 0:56:32It used to be command.
0:56:32 > 0:56:35No longer so.
0:56:35 > 0:56:39And that whether you like it or not, you live in a global world.
0:56:39 > 0:56:42And so what happens in India or Kenya matters as much
0:56:42 > 0:56:44to you and your friends and, above all, your children
0:56:44 > 0:56:47and grandchildren as what you know about Bournemouth or what you now
0:56:47 > 0:56:49about Newcastle.
0:56:49 > 0:56:57Shirley Williams, thank you very much.