Political Chemistry: Margaret Thatcher and Dorothy Hodgkin

By Rob Walters

Most people do not know what a crystallographer does, and if asked to name one crystallographer most of us would need to call a friend... and the friend would probably need to visit Wikipedia.

Everyone knows what a UK Prime Minister does, or what he or she should do. If asked to name one they could, and could certainly name the first woman Prime Minister of the UK, though some would not want to do so. Yet they probably could not name the only UK woman to gain a Nobel Prize in science, even though these two women should be equally famous.

Most people know that the UK's first woman Prime Minister began her adult life at Oxford University studying chemistry. However, chemistry is a big subject, surely she had to specialise - and yes, so she did: in crystallography. Her tutor was to become a big name in that field: she used X-rays to investigate the structure of molecules and came up with solutions for cholesterol, penicillin, vitamin B12 and insulin. Dorothy Hodgkin truly deserved her Nobel prize.

Now, Dorothy was not at all like Margaret Thatcher: she had a communist lover, eulogised the Soviet Union and Communist China and was a pacifist. Margaret, even as a student, was an avowed Conservative and chauvinist. So what would these two women talk about? That is exactly the question author Rob Walters endeavours to answer in his book "Margaret Thatcher and Dorothy Hodgkin: Political Chemistry."

Here are some early reviews:

It's good, very good! Peter Ashby FRSA, Consultant.

I read the first few chapters of Margaret and Dorothy in Conversation last night and enjoyed it – on a number of levels: the well-told and absorbing story of a developing relationship; the lesser-known biographical details (well, lesser known to me anyway); the content of the discussions –fundamental opposing political ideas discussed intelligently and without rancour. D'Arcy Vallance, Author and ELT Consultant

Really enjoyed the book. The subject matter is fascinating, whetted my appetite to read more ... haven't read anything on Margaret (the blood might boil!) and limited stuff on Dorothy. Maureen Minton, Oxford City Guide.

The conversations take place during Margaret's fourth year at Oxford during which she carried out research work in Dorothy's crystallography lab. They range widely over topics from socialism to sexual freedom and council housing to nationalisation. Of course, no one knows exactly what they did discuss, but the conversations are soundly based in the factual world of post war Britain and do reflect the characters of these two very interesting women.

There are in total fifteen short conversations which explore many topics. At the same time, they also shine a light on the interaction between the two women themselves. Here are some of the conversation titles:

Mothers
Grammar School Girls
Women in Politics
Crystal Clear
Socialism Abroad
Marriage and Children
Social Housing
Battle of the Sexes
Science and War
Free Milk and Nationalisation
Sexual Morality
Political Activism
The British Empire
Free Will

In the opening chapter, the author lists his qualifications for the daunting task of creating this fascinating dialogue. Among them is the change in his own political allegiance and the strength of that allegiance during his life. It is this which gives him the confidence to argue from both a left and right wing perspective through the words of his chosen subjects - Margaret and Dorothy. This also encourages an even hand, and hopefully leaves the reader's feathers reasonably unruffled, regardless of the colour of those feathers.

In the concluding chapter he describes what happens next. Margaret and Dorothy's relationship did not end when the budding politician left the grassy enclaves of Somerville College, Oxford. There was more, much more.

Though set in an era immediately following the end of WWII, there is still muc

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rob Walters
• Release date: Jun 2, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310757136

Rob Walters

I always wanted to write, even as a kid, and now I do. I can transfer the desire to other projects and often do - but if there is nothing much on then I need to write. In my past life in the technical world I was often puzzled by colleagues who hated writing in the way that some people hate maths.They were forced to write whereas the pen had to be wrested from my hand. When my children were young I wrote for them. I clearly recall reading the second chapter of a book I started on the lives of a family of city foxes. I had almost finished reading a section in which most of the cubs were gassed in their earth when I looked up and was amazed to see tears streaming down the faces of my two daughters. The power of the written word? My first full book was published in 1991, It followed many technical papers and articles and was followed by two newsletters which I edited, and mostly wrote, for the next ten years. Four more technical books appeared after which I abandoned the world of technology and began doing my own thing. I travelled, became an Oxford city guide, and wrote a number of books and articles, some fiction, some non-fiction, some published, some not. See my bookshop on the web for all of my books and a shocking experience in an online pub.

Book preview

Description

A fascinating set of fiction from fact conversations between two extraordinary women. Margaret Thatcher is known to all. Dorothy Hodgkin should be: she is Britain's only female scientific Nobel Prize winner, a reward for her groundbreaking work in determining the structure of penicillin and vitamin B12.

It is difficult to imagine women more different in character and political beliefs, yet their lives were closely linked: Dorothy was Margaret's tutor when the younger woman studied chemistry at Oxford University; Margaret, as Prime Minister, invited her old tutor to lunch at Chequers.

The setting for the conversations is Margaret's fourth year at Oxford while she carried out research work in Dorothy's crystallography lab. They range widely over topics from socialism to sexual freedom. No one knows exactly what they did discuss, but the conversations are soundly based in the factual world of post war Britain and reflect the characters of these two very interesting women.

Political Chemistry:

Margaret Thatcher and Dorothy Hodgkin

By Rob Walters

Version 2.3

Smashwords Edition

First published in 2014

The moral right of Rob Walters to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright holder.

This eBook is published by Satin

www.robsbookshop.com

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Cover photos

Margaret Thatcher at the White House 1983 (Margaret Thatcher Foundation)

Dorothy Hodgkin when she received her Noble Prize in 1964 (Nobelprize.org)

Chapter 0: Acknowledgements

Thanks to everyone who read through the early drafts of this book, your enthusiasm has inspired me. You know who you are, but I still want to thank you within these pages: Peter Ashby, D'Arcy Vallance, Björn Runngren, Maureen Minton and Angie Driscoll.

This second version of the book includes comments made by Margaret Bullard to whom I am doubly grateful since she knew both Margaret and Dorothy. Also thanks to Christer Frank who spotted typos that had eluded detection.

Chapter 1: Who, What and When

This little book contains fictional conversations between two famous women: Margaret Thatcher and Dorothy Hodgkin. There is an important link between them - Margaret studied chemistry at Oxford and Dorothy was her tutor. Furthermore, in the last year of her course Margaret was a research student in Dorothy's X-ray crystallography lab. Though they have this in common, they were very different people in background, in politics and in character.

Margaret Thatcher requires no introduction. She was a staunch Conservative and the first woman Prime Minister of the UK. In her own lifetime she became famous throughout the world. Dorothy Hodgkin is less well known, though in the world of biochemistry she is very famous indeed. Using X-ray crystallography, she determined the structure of many important substances including penicillin, vitamin B12, and insulin. She is the first and only woman from the UK to be awarded a Nobel Prize in science. She was very definitely a lady of the left and, like Margaret, not one for turning.

Margaret was the daughter of a grocer from Grantham, a small market town in Lincolnshire. Dorothy was the daughter of a colonial civil servant. Their upbringing was very different, their attitudes to life, morality, religion, marriage, in fact almost everything, poles apart.

Both women were highly intelligent. However, whereas Margaret was a thrusting, confident, abrasive woman with little tolerance for those she thought of as fools; Dorothy was a shy, unobtrusive, friendly woman with no taste for the labyrinthine committee politics of academic Oxford.

The inspiration for this book came from my day job as an Oxford city guide. Whilst designing a new walking tour based on North Oxford I thought how refreshing it was to talk about famous women for a change rather than exclusively men. Most tours focus on the older colleges, all of which were for men only until the 1970s, whereas North Oxford is the home of the early women's colleges. Prime amongst these famous women are Dorothy and Margaret of Somerville College. I began to wonder, given their strong links at Oxford and extremely different characters and opinions, what those intimate moments at the end of a one-to-one tutorial might be like. What would they have discussed, what might they have said?

On the lighter side, what right have I to imagine the conversations which might have taken place between these two interesting women? Well, my first name is Robert and Margaret's surname at the relevant time was Roberts. My wife's name is Margaret. We called our first goat Dorothy. I have had my photograph taken with Margaret Thatcher (and quite a few other people) at a conference in Salt Lake City. I live almost equidistant between the college of both women, Somerville, and Dorothy's main Oxford residence in the Woodstock Road. Margaret Thatcher privatised me back in 1984 (along with about a quarter of a million others in British Telecom). As mentioned, I am nowadays a city guide in Oxford and regularly talk to my groups about the two famous ladies. I have, during my life, traversed a well-beaten road between very left and slightly right in politics. The book is set in the year of my birth (roughly). I have read, with great pleasure, Georgina Ferry's excellent book 'Dorothy Hodgkin: A Life'. I have also dipped into various biographies of Margaret Thatcher including, 'Margaret Thatcher: Power and Personality' by Jonathan Aitken and 'The Iron Lady' by John Campbell. I have also spent many happy hours rifling through the Internet for articles on the immediate post WWII years in which these conversations are set.

When I created these conversations fifty years had passed since Dorothy received the Nobel Prize and just under a year since Margaret died. It therefore seemed timely to write this little work of historical fiction, if that is what this is. The Historical Novel Society decrees that a historical novel must have been written at least fifty years after the events described, or have been written by someone who was not alive at the time of those events. Well, I just fail on the latter, but forgive me since I was alive, but not sentient, at the time.

The meetings between the two women are assumed to have taken place in the 1946/7 academic year. So, travelling back to that time, Dorothy and Margaret are thirty-seven and twenty-two years old respectively. The war is over and a Labour government has just swept into power. The country's economy is wrecked and the troops are coming home. Dorothy has recently cracked the penicillin molecule and Margaret is researching into the structure of gramicidin S in order to earn her BSc at Oxford. Oh, by the way, terms like BSc and many other abbreviations and words have special meanings in the heady world of Oxford, its university and colleges, so I have included a list of definitions at the end of the book should you need them.

Most of the facts used during the conversations are true, but, once again, the conversations are fictional, though they do at times utilise utterances based loosely on the two women's own words.

Margaret Thatcher once asserted that she and Dorothy did not discuss politics - but what if they had? Read on.

Somerville College's unassuming entranceway in the Woodstock Road

Chapter 2: Getting Started

There is

Reviews for Political Chemistry

[baika · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

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