The Journals of Woodrow Wyatt Book

When Woodrow Wyatt died in December 1997, he was remembered as a politician, journalist, Chairman of the Tote and confidant of Margaret Thatcher. What no one knew was that from 1985 he had been keeping a journal. Wyatt's close relationship to Margaret Thatcher provides the compelling focus of these journals. Most Sunday mornings between 1986 and her fall from power, before most of the nation was eating breakfast, Woodrow Wyatt was encouraging, advising, listening to and commiserating with Margaret Thatcher. Their conversations touched on almost every political event of the time and it is in his journals that we find the comments he could not make public. Entries give the inside story of the Westland affair, the successful Thatcher 1987 election campaign and the growing unease with her leadership. But Woodrow Wyatt's journals are much more than political commentary. His life at the Tote brought friendship with racehorse owners and with royalty, in particular Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. His determination to modernise the Tote and his pride in maximising its profits for the benefit of racing run through his journals. No journal writer till now has offered such a mix of the historic and the absurd, the public and the personal. He records weekends in stately homes, parties big and small, the food, the wine and the gossip. Woodrow Wyatt, canny, opinionated, loyal and warm-hearted, is a contemporary Pepys in the spontaneity of his observations and the breadth of his interests.Read More