Having moved in 1978 to Lancaster University, I was nearly as busy as Margaret Thatcher through the 1980s: researching, writing, teaching, examining, administering, being head of department for three years after promotion to professor in 1984. That year only 5 per cent of allprofessors in England were women, although the late Lord Beloff did announce, when I opposed him in a Cambridge Union debate, that “the lady calls herself a professor; this is like a motor mechanic calling himself an engineer”. My promotion was announced in the Lancaster Guardian as “Mother of Three Made Professor”, so in spite of Enoch's view, I had managed it with children. I was now able to challenge much of my own ignorance, even travelling to the University of the South Pacific and meeting some policy-makers and politicians, including Margaret Thatcher. I spent time on two government-appointed committees dedicated to removing ignorance about minorities and imperialism, but the reports of both were ignored. I also chaired the parents’ Advisory Centre for Education (ACE), set up by (Lord) Michael Young, father of Toby (see Chapter 6). ACE has done great work for parental knowledge about what is happening to their children.

REGRESSIVE VISIONS

Margaret Thatcher became the first woman prime minister of the UK in 1979. One of her early activities was to take elocution lessons to lower her voice, which she thought was too shrill. Famous actor Lawrence Olivier had suggested that voice trainers at the National Theatre would oblige. At Oxford she was president of the university Conservative Society and early on demonstrated her dislike of socialism and the Labour Party, which she equated with Stalin's version of communism.