The National Archives: a gem store 1/

When I was doing my PhD at the University of Hull on the role of former Prime Ministers back in the 1990s, the thing I most enjoyed was collecting people's memories of those ex-premiers they had known. These memories were gained through academic interviews and through correspondence. Looking at the material now, there are a number of different topics I'd like to write about. Maybe one day.

Since I've returned to my research over the past year, the thing I have most enjoyed is visiting The National Archives. Not the least reason being because files have been released - and continue to be released - that cover the time I was actually doing my PhD. So I'm able now to study from behind the scenes what previously I had studied when it was being played front and centre all those years ago.

Edward Heath, James Callaghan, and Margaret Thatcher are as alive now in The National Archives files as they were physically alive when going about their business some three decades ago. But beyond that, The National Archives contain various gems which illuminate not policies and processes, but most of all, personalities. 

Here's just one example. It is from a memo, dated 16 November 1993, from John Major's Principal Private Secretary, Alex Allan, to one of Major's Private Secretary's, William Chapman. Headed 'Queen Mother', the memo includes this sentence:

It is clear that the Queen Mother is pretty frail – though well enough to attend the State Banquet last week and go down (when everyone was scuttling off to bed) to ask the Irish Guards to play some more rousing music, and then stay on the doorstep in the cold to do some shadow conducting!

The State Visit in question was from the ruler of Malaysia. Interestingly, Margaret Thatcher had paid a controversial visit to Malaysia earlier that year. It features in our study of her life after Downing Street. Even more interestingly, however frail The Queen Mother may have been in November 1993, she lived for almost another nine years.