Margaret Thatcher's Downing Street Years

Wezoin

Got mod approval for Thanatos for this, as I realize it might sound like I'm trying to get help with homework.

All the libraries and bookstores around here are closed for the next while because of the holiday weekend (Thanksgiving in Canada) and I have lost a quote I intended to use in an essay I'm writing. It is in Margaret Thatcher's The Downing Street Years on page 17 and relates to Tuesday Audience. If, by chance, anyone happens to have this book would you mind posting the quote I'm looking for please?

It is something along the lines of "anyone who thinks it is just a formality is mistaken, they are very important and helpful" except in a lot more extravagant wording.

EskimoDave

I have the book in front of me, but I don't see anything like your quote.

I'll just type out the whole page.

This book smells really bad by the way.

the iron lady wrote:

We knew we had won by the early hours of Friday 4 May, but it was not untuil the afternoon that we gained the clear majority of seta we needed - 44 as it eventually turned out. The Conservative Party would form the next governemnt.

There were many friends with me as we ainted for the results to come in furing those long hours in Conservative Central Office. But I can remember an off sense of loneliness as well as anticipation when I received the tlephone call which summonded me to the Palace. I was anxious about getting the details of procedure and protocol right; it is extraordinary how on really important occasions one's mind often focuses on what in the cold light of day seem to be mere trivia. But I was haunted by tales of embarrasing episodes as prime minister left and his succesor entered office: Ted Heath's departure from No. 10 was a case in point. I now could not help feeling sorry for James Callaghan, who just a little earlier had conceded victory in a short speech, both dignified and generous. Whatever our past and indeed future disagreements, I believed him to be a patriot with the interests of Britian at heart, whose worst tribulations had been inflicted by his own party.

At about 2:45pm the call came. I walked out of Central Office through a crowd of supporters and into the waiting car, whcih drove Denis and me to the Palace on my last journey as Leader of the Opposition.

The Audience at which one receives the Queen's authority to form a government comes to most prime ministers only once in a lifetime. The authority is unbroken when a sitting prime minister wins and election, and so it never had to be renewed throughout the years I was in office. All audiences with the Queen take place in strict confidence -

The page ended.

all spelling errors are mine.

And this book is starting to make me really dizzy from the smell.


edit 2 - Its page 18 you dick.

Perhaps it is permissable to make just two points about these meetings. Anyone who imagines that they are a mere formality or confined to social niceties is quite wrong; they are quietly businesslike and Her Majesty brings to bear a formidable grasp of current issues and breadth of experience. And, although the press could resist the temptation to suggest disputes between the Palace and Downing Street, especially on Commonwealth affairs, I walways found the Queen's attitude towards the work of the governement absolutely correct.

Arivia

EskimoDave wrote: »

I have the book in front of me, but I don't see anything like your quote.

I'll just type out the whole page.

This book smells really bad by the way.

It's on page 18, actually. Go Google Books excerpts.

Wezoin

Thanks alot!

That page 18 one was the one I was looking for - and sorry about the page mistake, the prof read it out in class and said it was on page 17.

Google Books Excerpts? Never heard of it but I'll keep it in mind for next time, thanks.