Opinion: Saying goodbye to Lady Thatcher (Richmond Times-Dispatch)
Gary L. McDowell, a professor in the University of Richmond's Jepson School of Leadership Studies, writes about the legacy and leadership of Margaret Thatcher. McDowell attended the funeral for Thatcher on April 17.
---
On Wednesday, April 17, the great, throbbing metropolis of London ground to a near halt: a web of roads from Westminster to St. Paul’s Cathedral was closed, thus rendering the capital’s normally horrific traffic even worse; hundreds of thousands of those who wished to pay their respects — along with a minority there to show their disrespect — packed the sidewalks as far as the eye could see; and even the great and solemn bells of Big Ben were silenced for the first time since the funeral of Winston Churchill nearly half a century earlier.
Inside, in the gilded splendor of Christopher Wren’s majestic cathedral, were assembled 2,300 invited guests who had gathered to mark the passing of Churchill’s only competitor as the greatest prime minister of the 20th century, one Margaret Hilda Thatcher.