First Lady skivvies

When Prime Minister Harold Wilson was called away suddenly from Chequers one weekend, leaving his wife Mary behind, she found "there was no encouragement for her to stay". Rather the contrary, since blinds were drawn and rugs rolled up around her, furniture covered in dustsheets the minute Wilson himself left.

It was only much later when the rules of the Chequers Trust were studied, that Mary Wilson was graciously allowed to remain at Chequers one night alone if her husband was summoned away unexpectedly, and even - what a concession! - allowed to arrive there shortly before him.

Nothing illustrates more clearly the curious, anomalous, unstated position of the Prime Minister's spouse in modern Britain, as described in The Goldfish Bowl by Cherie Booth and Cate Haste. The authors add that "even today, things are put away as soon as the Prime Minister leaves, though they don't go as far as the dustsheets".

Mary Wilson's experience also seems to demonstrate the unemotional but real resentment that is focused on the role of the Prime Minister's spouse, and more particularly that of the wife.

That is to say, Denis Thatcher is rightly included, in a particularly endearing contribution which must have been recorded quite late in his life, but with a mixture of bonhomie, indifference and a harddrinking, golf-playing public persona largely created by Private Eye, escaped this resentment.

What is the role of the First Lady in Britain? Nobody seems to know. Nobody knew when Sir Anthony Eden became Prime Minister in 1955, his beautiful young bride of only a few years, Clarissa Churchill, at his side. Nobody knew when Lady Dorothy Macmillan, the Duke's daughter who thought she had married a middle-class publisher, replaced Clarissa Eden in 1957.

Elizabeth Home, only a shortstay tenant, was equally uninformed, as was Mary Wilson. The admirable Audrey Callaghan, with a strong background of social service, especially for children, combined with stalwart Labour politics, was probably by nature the best prepared. It was she who initiated the use of No 10 for charity events: she was chairman for many years of Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital.

At least Norma Major, probably by nature the worst prepared, gallantly built on this charitable tradition (as has, notably, Cherie Booth, although she does not say so).

In the meantime, both Clarissa Eden and Norma Major, from utterly different backgrounds-born 20 years apart, tell stories of driving themselves to foreign embassies, Clarissa elegantly sporting a tiara in her Hillman Minx, although once again, examination of the rules, when pressed, provided some form of official transport, carefully scrutinised at all times to make sure not one penny of public money goes to the First Lady's allegedly greedy pocket.

In fact, far from being greedy, the poor woman is paying for endless clothes for functions, which she would never otherwise buy - and beware if she doesn't dress up! The press really would and did and do howl with displeasure. Unlike ambassadors' wives going abroad, the First Lady receives no dress allowance.