{"id":748784,"date":"2013-04-15T20:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-04-16T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/serkadis.com\/index\/?guid=b295a5e620a8d2da52de1d3352357c41"},"modified":"2013-04-15T20:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-04-16T00:00:00","slug":"news-story-we-called-her-mother-hen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/748784","title":{"rendered":"News story: &quot;We called her &#8216;Mother Hen&#8217;&quot;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"govspeak\"><p>Gardener Paul Schooling started work at 10 Downing Street in 1989. He remembers Baroness Thatcher\u2019s love of flowers and plants:<\/p>\n\n<blockquote>\n  <p>Mrs Thatcher loved the garden, and after she left office she came to a reception at Number 10. She was walking in the garden by the roses with then-Prime Minister Tony Blair and I introduced myself to her.<\/p>\n\n  <p>With her keen eye for detail, the first thing she said to me was: \u201cWhat have you done with my roses?\u201d. This was because after she had left we\u00a0replaced the roses with the hardier David Austin variety.<\/p>\n\n  <p>She loved roses, so much so, that a former gardener picked a rose for her every day to go in her study. She also liked Downing Street to be decorated with house plants.<\/p>\n\n  <p class=\"last-child\">When she left office I remember us all clapping her out and her crying. She then composed herself and walked out.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Michael York, a messenger, started at 10 Downing Street on 2 April 1982 on the night the Falklands War started. Here he recalls Baroness Thatcher, the \u2018Mother Hen\u2019:<\/p>\n\n<blockquote>\n  <p>Mrs Thatcher was very generous to the staff and made sure we were all looked after.\u00a0Sometimes if it had been a very long day she asked us to eat with her. We called her the \u2018Mother Hen\u2019.<\/p>\n\n  <p>When she used to walk into the private office everyone always used to stand up for her. That sort of thing doesn\u2019t happen these days.<\/p>\n\n  <p>One of my favourite memories of Mrs Thatcher came in the eighties when I was polishing brass before Queen Elizabeth II came for a special meeting of heads of the Commonwealth at Downing Street. A figure [Mrs Thatcher\u2019s] appeared above me and I said: \u2018what a nice pair of legs\u2019.<\/p>\n\n  <p class=\"last-child\">\u2018Thank you very much Michael\u2019 she said, and walked down the corridor laughing to herself.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a rel=\"external\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/number10gov\/sets\/72157633217806317\/with\/8640840800\/\">Visit a gallery of images of Baroness Thatcher.<\/a><\/p>\n\n<p><a rel=\"external\" href=\"http:\/\/www.number10.gov.uk\/news\/lady-thatcher-1925-2013\/\">Baroness Thatcher: tributes, statements and arrangements for her funeral.<\/a><\/p><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gardener Paul Schooling started work at 10 Downing Street in 1989. He remembers Baroness Thatcher\u2019s love of flowers and plants: Mrs Thatcher loved the garden, and after she left office she came to a reception at Number 10. She was walking in the garden by the roses with then-Prime Minister Tony Blair and I introduced [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":297,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4821],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-748784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-38Na","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/297"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=748784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748784\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=748784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=748784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=748784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}