The Spectator’s Notes | 11 December 2004

Muriel Cullen, who died last week, aged 83, was the elder and only sister of Margaret Thatcher. Living happily with her husband on his well-run farm in Essex, she showed not the slightest desire to be famous. I found her fascinating, though. In the course of my work on the life of Lady Thatcher, I visited Mrs Cullen and interviewed her. Although by then in poor health, she was every inch the daughter of Alderman Roberts, grocer and Mayor of Grantham. Like her sister, she would listen half-intently, half-impatiently to any question with her head held high and slightly on one side, in the fashion of a bird. She had good bones and was carefully dressed, a very strong woman and, I should think, a brave one. Her answers were, to put it mildly, crisp. Sometimes, she would suddenly say things like, ‘That’s enough of that. Let’s change the subject.’