Depressed and neurotic

‘Home very tired, midnight. Message to phone Marcia. Did so. She is very depressed and neurotic. Talked for 75 minutes. Attacks Joe, Albert and me. Says we are all out for ourselves. Ganging up against her. And that I am out to replace her. She says she will retire to her country house and wait for HW to sack us all and come personally to ask her to return.’ This is from the Downing Street diaries of Bernard Donoughue, a political adviser to Harold Wilson. Donoghue is writing about Marcia Williams (later Baroness Falkender) - born 90 years ago today - who, notoriously, wielded a powerful influence over Wilson.

Williams was born Marcia Matilda Field in Northamptonshire on 10 March 1932. Her father, a Tory, managed a brickworks. Her mother may have been an unacknowledged illegitimate daughter of Edward VII when he was Prince of Wales. She studied history at Queen Mary College London and was chairman of the college Labour Club. In 1955, she became secretary to the General Secretary of the Labour Party, and the same year married Eddie Williams, chairman of the Conservative Club (though they divorced in 1961). A year later, she became political and private secretary to Harold Wilson, MP, a position she retained through until 1983, covering the years of his leadership of the Labour Party and his premiereship. She had two sons in the late 1960s by the former political editor of the Daily Mail, Walter Terry

Williams was elevated to the peerage in 1974 as Baroness Falkender (her mother’s maiden name). She wrote two books about her time in Downing Street: Inside Number 10 and Downing Street in Perspective. After retiring from working in Downing Street, she worked as a columnist for the Mail on Sunday, though she continued to work for Wilson, handling his private business from the time of his resignation in 1976 until his death in 1995. 

Throughout the Wilson years, there was much speculation about Williams’ role in No. 10, and her influence over Wilson. Indeed, when he unexpectedly resigned in 1976, it was claimed Lady Falkender drafted his controversial resignation honours list, dubbed ‘The Lavender List’ because some of the names were written on lavender-coloured paper in Lady Falkender’s handwriting. In 2007, she successfully sued the BBC for libel over her portrayal in a drama-documentary which wrongly claimed she had compiled the list and that she had included people for her own personal interests. She died in 2019. Further information is available from Wikipedia and various obituaries (The Guardian and the BBC for example). 

There is no evidence that Williams kept a diary, but she figures very prominently in the first volume of diaries kept by Wilson’s political adviser, Bernard Donoughue - Downing Street Diary: with Harold Wilson in No. 10 (see Donoughue's Downing Street Diary). The book can be freely borrowed and read online at Internet Archive. Here are two extracts which give insight into how Williams wielded her power within Wilson’s entourage.

7 March 1994
‘In the morning I telephone Marcia from home. She was ill. Had fainted in the night. Not coming into the office this morning. I offered to bring her in by car, but she declined.

Went in to Downing Street at 9.30. HW seeing ministers. I talked to Jim Callaghan. Saw Albert Murray, who is very depressed about his insecure position in the PM’s entourage. He is a marvellous cockney and we must help him. [. . .]

Return to my room at noon. There waiting are Mary Wilson, Marcia and HW’s long-time housekeeper, Mrs Pollard (also from a Northamptonshire village close to where Marcia and I were born). They want me to recruit a cook for No. 10 to provide meals at all times. We spend some time discussing this. I had not realised I was also to be head of catering, but it appears so. I have already secured a fridge, an infra-red stove and a lot of frozen food. Now we need personnel.

Gerald Kaufman joins us. A family gathering.

But Marcia is jumpy. We go off upstairs to lunch - HW, Marcia, Joe, Albert and myself. Discuss appointments. Marcia starts a row over the exclusion of Bill Rodgers from the government. She thinks it is wrong and a political mistake. Joe and HW say that he was not a complete success as a minister previously. She says nor were most of the people he has appointed. It would be a stupid error, possibly a disaster, to leave Bill out.

I sit silent at first because they all know I am a friend of Bill’s. Then I said I thought he was very capable and disagreed with their criticism. But could not see how my intervention at this stage would help.

At the end of the meal Marcia walks out in a temper and HW is clearly upset. She had attacked him viciously in front of the waiter. He was very calm and patient with her. I get the feeling that everything he does in politics is to please her. He does not care about the people, the party or himself. She is the daughter who he delights in, however outrageous, and who he is working to please. It is amazing to watch. His patience with her is endless.

He leaves the table and Joe goes to help him with the next speech.

I go downstairs and have some appointments. I went into Marcia’s room and she is there with Albert, with her coat on. She has a temperature. Is leaving. We see her out and I said I would telephone her later.

Home very tired, midnight. Message to phone Marcia. Did so. She is very depressed and neurotic. Talked for 75 minutes. Attacks Joe, Albert and me. Says we are all out for ourselves. Ganging up against her. And that I am out to replace her. She says she will retire to her country house and wait for HW to sack us all and come personally to ask her to return.

She was also disturbed by what she called my ‘coolness’. Because I never got angry or upset. She also attacked HW bitterly and said he did not understand how to deal with civil servants.

She felt upset that she had carried the brunt of supporting Bill Rodgers at lunch.

Then it all came out. That HW was no longer consulting her. And I had not telephoned her this evening. She suspected because we all wanted to appoint the government without consulting her. Quite paranoic. Yet still shafts of bright perception and immense intelligence and judgement among the neuroses.’

8 March 1974
‘Spent restless night thinking about the conversation with Marcia. Decided to offer my resignation. Have not come into this, taking massive cut in income and mistrust of old political friends, to sit up half the night being accused of self-seeking. Even worse were the attacks on Albert.

Arrive at No. 10 at 9.30 a.m., before anybody else. Sort out my letters and papers. Then go to sec HW. Tell him two points:

(1) If I stay, have decided to accept a lower position in No. 10 rather than be a deputy secretary on the staff of the Cabinet Office. I want my position to be totally at No.10. And I don’t want him bothered by my personal problems any more. It means a cut of £7,000 p.a. in my income.

(2) I report that Marcia has talked to me, is afraid I am replacing her, and that I do not wish myself or him to be in that position. Therefore he has my resignation in his pocket from that moment. And when he wishes to exercise it, I promise to say to everybody, private as well as public, that it is because of my heavy family commitments, with no mention of Marcia’s jealousy and hostility.

He is very charming, says he appreciates the offer and that the fact that I have made it means it won’t have to be exercised. He tells me that Marcia has at one time or another demanded the resignation of all his previous assistants, including G. Kaufman and J. Haines. And when HW has suggested he might sack them, each time she has reacted by saying that if he did she would resign and tell the press that he was betraying his loyal aides.’