Private documents reveal the secret life of Thatcher's teddy bears

Margaret Thatcher’s teddy bears Humphrey and Mrs Teddy were busy and often unable to come out and play, personal files from the prime minister’s time in Downing Street reveal.

The documents, released by the Margaret Thatcher Foundation on Saturday provide fresh insights into the prime minister’s private life and the way her image was presented to the public.

Her Irish ancestry, rarely alluded to, is confirmed in briefing documents held by her political office as are details of her favourite colour and whether she got into trouble at school.

The files from 1988 include one dealing exclusively with requests to borrow the teddies. They had been lent before but her staff had wearied of the process of dispatching and recovering them.

A letter from the chair of Redbridge Young Diabetics to the prime minister arrived in April that year. “Four years ago you were kind enough to allow your Teddy Bear – Humphrey – to come to our picnic at Woburn. Would he be available now to go to the Piazza in Covent Garden, central London, to help release 10,000 balloons on behalf of the British Diabetic Association? We would take great care of Humphrey and the children are sure he will enjoy being the centre of attention.”

Perry Miller, from the political office in Downing Street, thanked the writer, but replied: “Unfortunately, he will not be able to join you because he is already engaged for this date. I am sorry to bring you a disappointing reply. However, Mrs Thatcher would like to send you her best wishes for a happy and successful day.”

In May, Gyles Brandreth, later a Conservative MP and founder of the Teddy Bear Museum in Stratford-upon-Avon, wrote to the prime minister about its opening and asking her: “If you have a teddy bear you felt able to loan … you could rest assured that he would be beautifully cared for, properly acknowledged, fully insured, and obviously could be returned to you at a moment’s notice.”

Perry Miller replied: “Unfortunately, they [the bears] will not be able to join you as they have other commitments that month.”

A few weeks latter in June a letter addressed to the prime minister from Action Research for the Crippled Child, said: “It is unlikely you will have received a letter on such a subject before...” and askied about borrowing a prime ministerial bear for a fundraising teddy bears’ picnic in Havant.

This time Emma McGougan from the political office, responded: “Unfortunately, they [the bears] will not be able to join you as they have other commitments that month.”

Chris Collins, from the Thatcher Foundation, confirmed that Mrs Thatcher was “into” her teddies and even at one stage had a toy pet cat outside the flat in Number 10. Her staff, however, “had found it a bit much with people writing in and had, perhaps, decided to close [the loaning out] down.”

Contacted last week, Gyles Brandreth said his recollection was that the prime ministerial bear did come and “spend a summer holiday” at his museum in 1988. He thought she must have countermanded her staff.

Brandreth said she later told him that collecting teddy bears was a “very sensible hobby” for an MP given the extra-curricular interests pursued by some MPs.

Among the newly released files, available at the Churchill archives in Cambridge, is one filled with neatly typed pages of biographical facts about the prime minister so that staff answering queries about her personal life had ready reference material. One entry explains: “PM retains great affection for Humphrey, a teddy bear some 50 years old.”

The documents show that her father, Alfred Roberts, was Welsh on his father’s side and Irish on his mother’s. WD Flackes, editor of a Northern Ireland political directory which he was updating, wrote to check that the existing entry was correct. It read: “There is an Irish strand to the prime minister’s ancestry. Her great-grandmother, Catherine Selewin, was born in Kenmare, Co. Kerry, in 1811.” In the margins, Thatcher herself commented: “This is all I know. MT.”

The notes list her favourites including: colour – turquoise; drink – whisky and soda; sweets - chocolates; TV programmes – Yes, Minister as well as The Professionals and Cannon. For pets, it says: “PM has no pets. However, Wilberforce, the No10 tabby cat, patrols the corridors.”

While Theresa May admitted to running through wheatfields when asked about the naughtiest thing she had done as a child, Thatcher’s response to the question ‘Get into Trouble at School?’, was more evasive. “Oh, didn’t we all. I’m sure we all did. None of us are perfect angels… there’s a streak of rebellion in all of us, isn’t there?” she replied.