London - The stage was set: dinner was over, the band were playing Cheek to Cheek and the dance floor was free.
But despite the efforts of the staff of the British embassy in Washington, President Ronald Reagan would not ask Margaret Thatcher to dance.
He had danced with his wife Nancy the previous evening at a White House event, but that night in 1981 it seemed that the Iron Lady was not for twirling.
According to a new biography of Reagan, the president left Thatcher disappointed as she loved dancing, having taken ballroom classes while at Oxford University.
It fell to Sir Nicholas Henderson, the then British ambassador to the US, to take her for a spin. She accepted immediately and said it was something she had wanted to do all evening.
Thatcher’s disappointment is recounted in Reagan: The Life by HW Brands, the first full biography of President Reagan since his death in 2004.
However, the incident does not seem to have hindered the friendship that grew between the PM and the former film star, who would happily dance together on later occasions, including in 1988 at a White House ball. The biography says she went to the US in March 1981, the first foreign leader to meet Reagan after his inauguration.
After dinner at the White House, the next night Thatcher reciprocated at the embassy. A band had been hired and a space cleared in the drawing room. All that was needed was a willing president to make the first move.
Brands writes that Sir Nicholas noted in his diary: “Rather to my disappointment the president did not ask Mrs T to dance though we had provided plenty of what we thought was appropriate music, such as Dancing Cheek to Cheek and Smoke Gets in Your Eyes. I am not sure why. It is possible that he may not have known in advance that dancing would be going to take place and did not therefore know whether it would have been in order to have started.”
His diary continues: “So I went up to her and said: ‘Prime minister, would you like to dance?’ and then escorted her on to the floor. Mrs T accepted my offer without complication or inhibition and... confessed to me that that was what she had been wanting to do all the evening. She loved dancing, something, so I found out, that she did extremely well.”
Daily Mail