Taki Taki

High Life | 7 March 2009

The enemy within

issue 07 March 2009

Gstaad

Thirty years ago this week my daughter was three and my son had not been born. I had left Gstaad for gloomy, strike-ridden, non-stop power cuts London, and the mother of my children was peeved at me as I had begun circling the daughter of the Belgian ambassador to the Court of St James. The Speccie was selling 7,000 copies, the New Statesman 70,000, and Jim Callaghan was asking the press what crisis they were banging on about. Oh yes, Jeffrey Bernard’s column followed mine and it was called ‘End Piece’. An appropriate name for England’s oldest and most elegantly written magazine, as it looked like curtains as far as the country was concerned.

Then Margaret Thatcher happened and most of you know the rest. It all came back as I watched The Making of the Iron Lady last week.

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