Mrs T's Table

There will be a great deal of loved-her-eulogy and hated-her-diatribe about Mrs T over the next few days but here is a unique titbit (apparently, it's 'tidbit' in the USA). Margaret Thatcher was the pupil of Peter Rowland in his tax chambers at 2 Temple Gardens, in the Inner Temple. Almost by chance, I now possess various books that belonged to him and two things that Mrs T would certainly remember: a framed print of the mural in the Palace of Westminster of The Plucking of the Red Rose and the White Rose in Inner Temple Gardens, by Henry Arthur Payne (depicting the start of the War of The Roses, as supposed by Shakespeare):

- and an ornate, mahogany pedestal table at which Mrs T (remembered by Rowland as 'bossy') must have worked. The table is in storage in England, so no picture, I am afraid.