Margaret Thatcher To be Buried Today+ What You Don't Know About Her

 
The Woman of great mind, a fearless intelligence , courageous, generous activist who fought so well for the right of ordinary people, no other person than the first female British prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher to be buried today.

Her church roots will lie at the heart of the service, and it will be attended by faithful supporters, family and friends.

Olga Griffiths will be honoured today at her local Baptist church in South Wales.

A former local councillor, trade unionist, factory worker and ­great-grandmother, she died on March 26 at the age of 86.

Not an iron lady, but a steely woman from a hardworking community with a coal miner’s courage and fine Welsh warmth.

Born within a year of Margaret Thatcher, more than 150 miles and several light years will separate Olga’s farewell from the pomp and ceremony of the more famous burial taking place in London.

There will be no long procession through the streets. No cathedral. No horse-drawn gun carriage. No presidents or prime ministers. No military honours.

The taxpayer will not pay a penny towards the funeral or the short ceremony at the cemetery afterwards.

The events of the day will cost close to £10million less.

But Olga’s friends and family will grieve no less for a woman described by her former local MP Neil Kinnock as having given “outstanding service to the ­community”.

Today, the former leader of the Labour Party has chosen to be with her and not in London among the great and the good.

He had promised Olga’s family he would be there long before the death of his great adversary.

Olga Griffiths did not have an easy life. Born like Margaret Thatcher between two world wars, she spent many years caring for her daughter and husband who were both disabled – but that never stopped her caring for others, too.

A Labour Party member for more than half a century, she first became active in the trades union movement while working in the Post Office telephone factory in Cwmcarn.

It is fitting, perhaps, that Olga’s mining community in Gwent was among the worst affected in the country by Margaret Thatcher’s policies.

Olga was a councillor on Islwyn Borough Council in the 1980s and 1990s, a time of great hardship as Thatcher ripped the beating heart out of the mining industry in South Wales.

Her hometown had a famous soup kitchen for miners run by local women that often fed 100 men beef pie and potatoes on the picket line.

It also fed families at its luncheon clubs – women and children who otherwise would have gone hungry.

In the early 19th century and for much of the 20th, the local collieries Celynen North, Celynen South and Graig Fawr employed thousands of highly skilled miners and the area thrived.

Today, the mines lie quiet. Across South Wales, between 1960 and 1990, 150 collieries were closed and 70,000 miners lost their jobs.

Of course, some pit closures were inevitable, the nature of the industry, but where previous governments tried to help the communities back into work, there was no such support under Thatcher’s government.

Meanwhile, the privatisation of South Wales’s proud steel industry saw another 14,500 jobs lost at Ebbw Vale alone.

Still, Olga and women like her fought the effects on the most vulnerable.

Today, the community she fought for is in the middle of extensive regeneration, part of a new vision for Wales.

Olga Griffiths did not divide ­communities – she brought them together.

Not just during the miners’ strike, but during long years of service, and long before and after her time spent in local office.

Her granddaughter Suzanne Cuthbert has described her grandmother as a “remarkable woman from the Valleys” who once met Nelson Mandela. Or perhaps it was the other way around.

So today, Neil Kinnock, her great friend and Labour colleague, will attend the funeral of the lesser known of the two women he worked with and against – women who define the choices of a generation.

One of those women, who believed in individualism, died in a luxury hotel room without family or friends.

The other, who believed in the ­collective power of people, will be remembered today by the people she helped and loved.

Today, as the world stops to remember the woman from Grantham who brought discord and despair to the Valleys, Olga’s community will come together to remember the woman from the Valleys who believed in harmony and hope.

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