Quote for the Day

Stephen Boxer as Dennis Thatcher and Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher, The Crown, Season 4

Kate and I began to watch Season 4 of The Crown on Netflix last night, superb television, wonderful acting, writing, sets . . . I could go on but watch it yourself, starting at Season 1, if you have not yet done so.

Gillian Anderson plays Margaret Thatcher so convincingly in voice, manner and appearance that you would swear it was the real Iron Lady.

At one point, in a meeting with Her Maj after the PM has sacked a number of her Cabinet members, Her Maj raises making enemies.

Thatcher replies by quoting a poem, this is it . . .

No Enemies

By Charles Mackay (1814–1889)

YOU have no enemies, you say? 

Alas! my friend, the boast is poor; 

He who has mingled in the fray 

Of duty, that the brave endure, 

Must have made foes! If you have none, 

Small is the work that you have done. 

You’ve hit no traitor on the hip, 

You’ve dashed no cup from perjured lip, 

You’ve never turned the wrong to right, 

You’ve been a coward in the fight.

Apparently Margaret Thatcher kept a copy of the poem in a scrapbook.