Daughter pens election book

Press, 14 June 1983, Page 8

Daughter pens election book

NZPA London The first book on Margaret Thatcher’s election victory will come out this week, one week after polling day and written by her daughter, Carol. Miss Thatcher, aged 29, a journalist on London’s “Daily Telegraph,” calls it, “Diary of an Election: With Margaret Thatcher on the Campaign Trail.” The manuscript was sent to the publisher, Sidgwick and Jackson, day-by-day during the four-week campaign after Mrs Thatcher announced the election on May 9. The last entry is for Friday, when the ballot papers were tallied and the Tories romped home with 144 seats majority over the Labour Party. The complete text went to the printers at the week-end and the book was printed and bound in hardcover and paperback. < Miss Thatcher was on three weeks leave from her London job and asleep in Tasmania when she got a call from her publishers about the election. Soon after, her mother called with the same news and she

flew back to England to begin helping her and start writing the book. Miss Thatcher had discussed the possibility of a book on the election before going to Australia to gather material for a book about Britons and Australians to be published next year. “Never before has an election been recorded by someone so close to a Prime Minister,” said Sidgwick and Jackson’s managing director, William Armstrong. “The book is an intimate account of what goes on behind the scenes.”