Review
------
[in] this special and important book... Slocock has done her
former boss and women in general a great service in painting such
a vivid, sympathetic picture of what it means to be powerful and
female. --The Sunday Telegraph Allison Pearson
An outstanding new biography... this remarkable,
beautifully-written account of the decline and fall of Britain's
first woman prime minister is a book about the deeply complex
relationship between femininity and real, hard power: the clash
between testosterone-driven male egos and a woman who had to
manage them and simultaneously protect herself from them. It's a
great read and I could not recommend it more highly. --Richard
and Judy, Daily Express
Much more than meets the eye in this book really interesting on
women and power in the present day as well as Thatcher and her
time. --Mishal Husain
Wasn't that fascinating! Caroline Slocock, really worth getting
her book, People Like Us. If you were to say, post 1945, which
particular day would you want to walk straight into at the heart
of politics and watch what was going on...I think you'd go with
22nd November 1990, wouldn't you? - the day Margaret Thatcher
resigned, and Caroline was there! --Jeremy Vine
This is a book of multiple fascinations. As an insider's view of
the final phase of Margaret Thatcher's extraordinary premiership,
it would succeed on its own, but Caroline Slocock's account is
much, much more than that. As the first woman to work as a civil
service private secretary at No. 10, her observations illuminate
the place of women at the top end of public service in the late
1980s and early 1990s. It is also deeply interesting on how to
keep civil service impartiality in a No. 10 suffused with
ideology. People Like Us is as rich in its human story as it is
with the high politics. Historians will dip into People Like Us
as if from a well. --Peter Hennessy
The most striking part of the book is the description of the day
she resigned...which is very hard to read almost, it s very
emotional...very worth reading. --Andrew Marr, Start the Week
This is more than just the story quite familiar in powerful
people of a character who is much nicer in private than in
public. It is part of a bigger narrative.... The book makes the
reader think about wider questions. Why is it that the three most
striking characters in British public life in the past 50 years
Margaret Thatcher, Diana, Princess of Wales and the Queen have
been women? Is it mere rarity value? Or is it because though each
is so different from the others there is something about being
female that touches reality more closely? --Charles Moore,
Margaret Thatcher's official biographer, The Telegraph
People Like Us is an important part of Thatcher studies. --Adam
Boulton, Sky News
Anyone interested in Margaret Thatcher should get hold of this
book. --Andrew Gimson
A thought-provoking memoir. --Ysenda Maxtone-Graham, Daily
Mail's Book of the Week
This is an excellent, highly readable memoir which really does
shed new light on the Iron Lady. --Chris Hallam
Full of fascinating in into the daily life of No 10.
Poignant, hugely interesting [with] superb personal accounts.
--Pennant Magazine
A unique, unwarty political portrait. --The Spectator
For a fresh look at a much-mythologised woman, try People Like
Us: Margaret Thatcher and Me by Caroline Slocock, Mrs Thatcher's
private secretary for her last 18 months in office. Although she
did not agree with her boss politically, Slocock came to admire
her profoundly, and asks why this trailblazing woman in power was
sentenced by feminists of her day to a kind of sexual
excommunication. --the Daily Telegraph, Best Books of 2018
It's hugely interesting on feminism and women in power and the
impossible standards men (and other women) hold women to.
Definitely worth a read! --Stella Duffy, co-founder Women's
Equality Party
She was no feminist but this book reveals that Margaret Thatcher
was much more complex than her public persona would convey.
Caroline Slocock's unique in challenges us to reassess our
first woman Prime Minister and reflect on the misogynistic way
women in power and public life are still treated. Margaret
Thatcher was no sister to me, but after reading this book I feel
I can be a sister to her. --Sam Smethers, chief executive,
Fawcett Society
People Like Us is an important part of Thatcher studies.--Adam
Boulton, Sky News
The most striking part of I thought of the book is the
description of the day she resigned...which is very hard to read
almost, it s very emotional...very worth reading.--Andrew Marr,
Start the Week
Anyone interested in Margaret Thatcher should get hold of this
book. --Andrew Gimson
This is more than just the story quite familiar in powerful
people of a character who is much nicer in private than in
public. It is part of a bigger narrative.... The book makes the
reader think about wider questions. Why is it that the three most
striking characters in British public life in the past 50 years
Margaret Thatcher, Diana, Princess of Wales and the Queen have
been women? Is it mere rarity value? Or is it because though each
is so different from the others there is something about being
female that touches reality more closely? --Charles Moore,
Margaret Thatcher's official biographer, The Telegraph
About the Author
----------------
Caroline Slocock was the first woman Private Secretary at No. 10
and was Private Secretary (Home Affairs) between 1989 to 1991 to
Margaret Thatcher and John Major.
After leaving No. 10, she worked to change the culture and
working practices of the Treasury, which many women saw as a
barrier to their advancement, and went on to reform the public
expenditure system and public services. At the Department for
Education and Skills, she oversaw a national expansion of
childcare and nursery education. Between 2002 and 2007, she was
the chief executive of the Equal rtunities Commission, the
statutory body that promoted equal rtunities for women and
men, and helped achieve significant advances, though many
challenges remain.
She currently runs a think tank and a leadership network
dedicated to improving services and strengthening communities.
She is the author of many publications on this theme and is a
regular commentator in the media.
She lives in London and Suffolk and is married to the crime
writer John Nightingale, with two daughters.