Sir Denis Thatcher, Bt

Until Margaret Thatcher's election victory in 1979, he was an unknown retired oil company executive who had assiduously kept himself in the background.

Suddenly the spotlight fell upon him too; but despite numerous attempts to embarrass him (notably over his business interests and Right-wing opinions), Denis Thatcher maintained a dignity and modesty that won him a large measure of public affection.

His popularity was also fuelled by the Dear Bill letters in the magazine Private Eye. Purporting to be his correspondence with a friend, popularly assumed to be Lord Deedes, the former Cabinet minister and editor of The Daily Telegraph, they caricatured him as a golf-addicted, drink-loving, hen-pecked husband who stole furtive moments of relaxation with elderly cronies, in between the demands placed upon him by "the Boss".

The satire was successful because it contained elements of truth, notably about Denis Thatcher's love of golf (he played off a handicap of 20 in later years) and his mode of expression. Some of the most popular expressions from Dear Bill - a "tincture", for example - were parts of the real Denis Thatcher's vocabulary.

His blimpish views, so often parodied in the letters, were also true to life. In private, he would castigate "pinkos" who stood in the way of the reforms his wife planned for Britain, and he believed that the Labour Party and its members were, broadly speaking, Communists (unlike his wife, however, he did not support the death penalty, viewing it as "absolutely barbaric").

The letters translated on to the stage in the form of the highly successful farce, Anyone for Denis?, in which he was played by John Wells.

Thatcher was a traditional husband, the master in his own house despite his wife's eminent role in the country. He had a rather old-fashioned view of the world, and in his marriage kept his male pursuits very much to himself. It was particularly remarkable, and a tribute to his enormous loyalty and integrity, that a man of Denis Thatcher's traditional outlook and generation could encourage his wife to shine.

Yet Denis Thatcher had a more serious role to perform, and did it brilliantly. He was his wife's principal adviser and her support at the worst moments of crisis. Particularly when her cabinet colleagues tried to browbeat her in the early days of her premiership, he was the invaluable stabilising force in her life.

"I think the marvellous thing is that he gives me a sense of perspective," his wife said of him. "If I am upset or think I have done something silly, we talk about it and he makes me see sense."

Thatcher was rarely unpleasant to individuals, though an exception was made for Sir Edward Heath. He travelled the world, was endlessly cheerful and patient and acted as a first-class informal ambassador for Britain. When the IRA bombed the Grand Hotel at Brighton during the 1984 party conference he was at his wife's side, and was almost killed with her.

Denis (Dennis on the birth certificate) Thatcher was born at Lewisham on May 10 1915. The Thatchers were a farming family established at Uffington, near Swindon.

Denis's grandfather Thomas, born in 1848, had emigrated to New Zealand in the 1870s. After his English wife died of tuberculosis when she was only 25, Thomas married a girl whose family came from Northern Ireland, and started a business called the Atlas Preservative Company, which made wood and skin preservatives.

In 1898 Thomas Thatcher returned to England to set up a branch of Atlas Preservatives at Deptford which his son Jack took over as managing director in 1911. Milder in temperament than his despotic father, Jack married a lively girl called Kathleen Bird, the daughter of a Camberwell horsetrader. She had been employed as a secretary at Atlas.

Their son Denis was born three years after their marriage, and was educated at Mill Hill, where he was academically undistinguished, but acquired a love of rugby that he retained throughout his life.

From childhood Denis was afflicted by shyness, later remarking with his customary directness, "If you're born shy, you're born shy, aren't you?" His younger sister, Joy, once said: "He was terribly serious when he was young. Mother used to say outrageous things, and Den would say, 'Mother, must you?' "

His father was his role model. "[He] laid down the correct standards by which to live your life," Denis Thatcher later remembered. "He was a gentle man, and a gentleman. His standards of behaviour and of honour were above reproach, and I think I got a lot from him from that point of view."

Meanwhile, Jack Thatcher instilled in his son an affection for Gilbert and Sullivan, and the need for caution in financial matters.

On leaving school in 1933, Denis joined the factory floor at Atlas Preservatives, which had by now moved to new premises at Erith. He also studied accountancy to improve his grasp of business, and in 1935 was appointed works manager.

On a business trip to Germany in 1937, Thatcher watched the Hitler Youth marching through the streets, telling his father on his return: "It's not a question of if there'll be a war, but when. I might as well go and get trained."

In October 1938 Thatcher was commissioned 2nd lieutenant with the 34th (Queen's Own Royal West Kent) Searchlight Battalion, Royal Engineers, based at Blackheath. On the outbreak of war the following year, he was assigned to anti-aircraft duties in Kent. In 1942, as a staff captain with an anti-aircraft division in Cardiff, he met the songwriter Jimmy Kennedy (author of the lyrics of Hang Out Your Washing on the Siegfried Line), who became a lifelong friend.

It was at this time that he contracted a brief marriage to Margaret Doris Kempson, but it ended in divorce after the war. His first wife, who went on to marry a baronet, Sir Howart Hickman, 3rd Bt, later described Denis Thatcher as "one of the kindest men I have ever known".

Thatcher himself recalled: "We were never able to live together because I was in the Army. It ended because I was away, and I can't blame her." The marriage, under these circumstances, "didn't stand a chance".

Just three days after the death of his father in June 1943, Denis Thatcher embarked for Sicily with the HQ of 73 Anti-Aircraft Brigade, which was to provide protection for the rear of Montgomery's Eighth Army in Operation Husky, the invasion of Italy. At this stage based at Taormina, he and his comrades were some way behind the action. He remembered that the officers' liquor allowance was one bottle of whisky a month.

When he landed on the mainland in October 1944, so little seemed to be happening that he and a friend took a week's leave, borrowing a Jeep to go on a brief "tour" of Italy. He was then transferred to Marseilles, to serve with the US 7th Army.

Because of the devastation left behind, Thatcher and his men had to set up headquarters in a bank and live in a bar ("damn near the red light district"). He helped to extradite captured Poles who had been interned in Switzerland, and to move the 5th Canadian Division without allowing the Germans to detect where the reinforcements were headed.

There was an improvement when Thatcher was able to move from the bar into a "very pukka" chateau, where he and his friends overcame the liquor drought by producing their own gin, mixing alcohol with the juice from juniper berries in the bath:

"A mouthful of this stuff nearly blew our heads off. That was easily solved - we turned the tap on and watered it down. It was still terrible stuff and tasted like hell, but it was gin. The Americans had fruit juice in their rations. . . So when our guests came to the chateau, we grandly offered them 'gin and jungle juice', as if it were the most sophisticated cocktail on earth."

Thatcher was twice mentioned in dispatches, and in 1945 was appointed MBE (military) for his initiative and organisational skills. He was demobilised in 1946 with the rank of major, and returned to the family firm. Later he credited the Army with teaching him "to think" and "the elements of leadership".

Appointed joint general manager of Atlas after leaving the Army, Thatcher was on a salary of £1,000 a year. The business during the war years had concentrated on making camouflage paint and on chemical cleaning, and although it had kept afloat, the shortage of raw materials was a problem.

By 1947 profits had risen from £7,000 to £12,000. He did not enjoy his work ("a lousy industry and a miserable little business" had long been his view), but he persevered, becoming chairman of the Council of the National Paint Federation; he even co-wrote a book called Accounting and Costing in the Paint Industry.

For relaxation, he took up refereeing rugby matches. When he graduated to being put in charge of a match involving Richmond's first XV he was "terrified". "On the way there I said to myself, 'Thatcher, make a balls of it and you are finished'." (He didn't.)

Thatcher also became active in the local Conservative Party, standing unsuccessfully for Kent County Council. His involvement led to his being co-opted to the selection committee, in 1949, of the Dartford constituency, when it chose Margaret Roberts to fight the 1950 general election. (Eighteen months earlier, Denis Thatcher had been asked to consider standing as the candidate; he had unhesitatingly declined.)

They began a discreet courtship. She was 23, working as a research chemist, and, as a prospective parliamentary candidate, did not want her career to be compromised by her private life. In 1951 they were married, shortly after their engagement had been announced on polling day in October, when Mrs Thatcher suffered her second defeat at Dartford.

Asked later whether it had been love at first sight, his wife replied: "Certainly not." Years later, when Denis Thatcher was asked what had first attracted him to his future second wife, he replied: "Several things. She's got a good pair of legs."

He had decided to propose while on a motoring holiday (in his "tart-trap" sports car) with a friend in France: "I suddenly thought to myself, 'That's the girl'." Having been accepted, Thatcher went to the Roberts's house in Grantham to meet the future in-laws: "Margaret made the introductions and said, 'Denis likes a drink', and I swear her father had to blow the dust off the sherry bottle."

By the time they married at Wesley's Chapel in the City on December 13 1951 (in a ceremony, Denis joked, that his father-in-law must have thought was "half way to Rome"), Margaret had lost two elections at Dartford, while reducing the Labour majority on each occasion.

Both socially and financially, the marriage was highly advantageous to Margaret Thatcher, and became the cornerstone of her career. As Denis was still busy with Atlas, he was able to provide his wife with the financial security that allowed her to give up her work as a chemist to read for the Bar.

For the next quarter of a century, while his wife advanced politically (entering Parliament as MP for Finchley and Friern Barnet in 1959; the government in 1961; and the cabinet in 1970), he kept a low profile, successfully developing his business.

Under his guidance, its paints, wood preservatives and other coatings were sold across the world. By 1957 the Atlas factory had expanded to 60,000 sq ft and the company employed some 200 people. Thatcher himself worked long hours, and had to spend much of his time abroad on sales drives. In 1964, suffering from what appeared to be exhaustion, he had to take a sabbatical in South Africa.

On his return, he decided to sell up and, in 1965, Atlas was taken over by Castrol, who paid £530,000 (earning Thatcher himself £10,000). The new owners appointed him a director and, when Castrol was taken over by Burmah Oil, he was appointed divisional director of planning and control and joined its board. Burmah's headquarters was at Swindon, 83 miles from London; Thatcher drove there and back every day.

In his spare time, Thatcher was still involved in rugby, both as a referee and an administrator. This was despite back problems, which demanded that, for three seasons, he had to referee while wearing a steel jacket: "I'm the only person living," he once said, "who refereed the county semi-finals in body armour." In 1956 he was appointed treasurer of the London Society of Rugby Football Union Referees, in which post he successfully reorganised the society's finances.

In April the same year he acted as a touch judge for the international match in Paris between France and England. But when he finally retired as a referee in 1963, he was disappointed never to have been made a member of the international panel. Throughout his career, he never sent off a player.

In 1959, while his wife was campaigning for Finchley, Thatcher had temporarily given up his refereeing to support her at meetings, a gesture which Mrs Thatcher affectionately described as "quite something, considering he wouldn't do it for our wedding anniversary".

But her election did little to change his life, at least at first. According to his daughter Carol, in her biography of Denis, Below the Parapet (1996), "he was entirely unmoved by having an MP in the family; after all, his wife had always studied or worked, and now she had simply swapped law for politics". Meanwhile, after the family had acquired a weekend flat in Kent, he addressed himself to a new sporting passion - golf.

When Mrs Thatcher stood for the leadership of the Conservative Party in 1975, Denis Thatcher later admitted that he "didn't think she could win. But she said: 'My friends say this and that', so I said, 'Well, if your friends say so. . . ' Of course I told her I'd support her all the way - that's what marriage is all about."

The first sign that his business interests might bring him to the attention of the press did not come until just before his wife ran for the leadership, when Burmah collapsed. He had, in any case, planned to retire on his 60th birthday, which was to fall three months after his wife became Leader of the Opposition, enabling him to devote as much of his time to her as necessary.

Retirement, in effect, meant embarking on a second career, as the consort of a political leader. He approached his new duties with a mixture of ironic resignation and good humour.

Towards one interested party, however, he remained implacable: the press. He christened reporters "reptiles", and only once gave an interview - to the Financial Times - on the subject of railway sleepers, since he was on the board of a company that made them.

His explanation for his reticence was typical: "My father told me as a boy: 'Whales don't get killed unless they spout'." When the Duchess of York complained to Thatcher at a dinner about her "awful press", he replied: "Yes, Ma'am. Has it occurred to you to keep your mouth shut?"

He was a welcome figure among Conservatives generally following his wife's election, not least because the innumerable social functions that are the lot of the Leader of the Opposition became easier for a party leader with a spouse. But for the most part, Denis Thatcher limited his role to behind the scenes.

In many ways, though, his wife's election as Prime Minister put him as much in the front line as any politician. In the confidence debate of March 1979, which brought down the Labour government, Thatcher sat in the gallery muttering and egging his wife on.

His first step into political controversy was at the annual dinner of the London Society of Rugby Union Referees, in December 1979. He was critical of opposition to a proposed British Lions tour of South Africa: "We are a free people, playing an amateur game, and we have the right to play where the hell we like," he declared.

The full wrath of the anti-apartheid lobby was brought down upon him. Peter Hain (from the "stop all racist tours campaign") attacked him; the British Olympic Association attacked him; and so did a number of Labour MPs.

The press, for a time, would stop at nothing to hound him. There was the "scandal" of Burmah paying "starvation wages" to its employees in South Africa; the supposed involvement of his son, Mark, in a deal in Oman that allegedly represented a conflict of political interest; and, above all, there was the "Edwards letter".

In December 1980 Denis Thatcher wrote to Nicholas Edwards, the then Secretary of State for Wales, to complain about the delay to a planning appeal in which he had a business interest. In September 1981 the letter disappeared from the Welsh Office's files, and ended up in the national press.

Much shock was manufactured by the Opposition parties, the principal cause of scandal being that Thatcher had written on Downing Street writing paper in a way that apparently made use of his connection with the Secretary of State. It proved a non-event. As a private individual, Thatcher had done absolutely nothing wrong.

Yet, throughout the remainder of his life, he managed to keep in the background. As Mrs Thatcher became one of the most extensively-travelled politicians in the world, he went with her around the globe, taking an enthusiastic interest in the countries that they visited.

He was, however, nonplussed when news came, on April 2 1982, of the Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands. "I remember looking at The Times Atlas of the World," he recalled, "to find out where the bloody hell they were - and I wasn't the only one. . . From the word go, I said 'Get them off!' "

The IRA bomb at Brighton was the occasion for another vintage Thatcher reaction. When, in the immediate aftermath of the explosion, he was advised against returning to his hotel bedroom, he replied: "Do be reasonable. I can't go around in my pyjamas."

In late 1990, when Mrs Thatcher faced a leadership challenge from Michael Heseltine, her husband wanted her to withdraw after the first, inconclusive, ballot; when she finally decided to do so, ending her 11 years in power, his reaction was half relief and half anger at what he saw as the treachery of her party.

Denis Thatcher once said: "For 40 wonderful years I have been married to one of the greatest women the world has ever produced. All I could produce - small as it may be - was love and loyalty."

For her part, Lady Thatcher wrote in her memoirs, The Downing Street Years: "I could never have been prime minister for more than 11 years without Denis at my side. . . He was a fund of shrewd advice and penetrating comment. And he very sensibly saved these for me rather than the outside world."

Thatcher was a man of simple tastes who favoured soups, smoked salmon, tinned tongue, corned beef, and baked beans on toast. Meat had to be cooked almost to a crisp; in a London restaurant, he once sent back his poussin with the instruction: "I want you to take it away, kill it and cook it." He hated the smell of fried onions, and detested garlic. As for drink, he refused ice because it "diluted the alcohol".

While he found life at Downing Street somewhat oppressive, Denis Thatcher loved Chequers - except for the Henry Moore sculpture on the back lawn - and enjoyed practising his putting in the garden. When the Downing Street security advisers told him he should abandon his beloved silver Rolls-Royce on the grounds that it was too conspicuous, he went out and bought a blue Ford Cortina station wagon. He was a conservative dresser, although he liked to adopt an evening cloak with a scarlet lining.

In 1991 his contribution was recognised when he was created a baronet, the first since the honours list of Sir Alec Douglas-Home in 1964; none has been created since.

Sir Denis is survived by Lady Thatcher and their twins Mark and Carol, who were born in 1953 while their father was watching a Test Match at the Oval; Mark Thatcher succeeds in the baronetcy.

Published June 27 2003