Dame Mary Archer
Rupert Brooke – or rather, his bronze statue – is staring sternly as I crunch over the gravel driveway of his former home, The Old Vicarage in Grantchester.
Now, of course, it's the residence of Lord Archer (best-selling author, exuberant millionaire, former prison inmate) and Lady Archer (chairman of Addenbrooke’s, solar energy whizz, long-suffering wife of Jeffrey).
It's the Lady of the house I'm here to meet and, if you believe everything you read, she’s likely to be every bit as stern as Rupert Brooke’s statue. Notoriously business-like and reserved, one broadsheet even referred to her as ‘Scary Mary’.
First impressions don’t exactly have me cringing in terror: she’s smiling, for a start. Carefully coiffed and clad in a beautifully-cut suit, Archer also looks radiant, which is rather surprising given that she’s recently been battling with an aggressive form of bladder cancer. So aggressive, in fact, that her entire bladder had to be removed.
Does she mind talking about it? “No, I don’t mind at all! I’m very well, and I’m rather fitter than I was before, because I’ve worked at it,” she says, revealing regular jogging jaunts alongside Grantchester’s lush meadows: “It’s glorious on a sunny Sunday morning, although you can get slightly impeded by the cows…”
It was in October 2010, the day after her son William’s wedding, that Archer realised something was wrong. “These things, of course, never happen at a good time.
“That morning I noticed a lot of blood in my urine, which is the classic sign of bladder cancer, as well as other less-serious things. I knew very well what it was likely to be, but obviously I didn’t say anything that day.”
An ultrasound confirmed her fears: a tumour loomed large on the screen. What was going through her mind? “Some surprise, because I don’t think I had any of the risk factors for bladder cancer, which are being male, being a smoker and drinking.
“But my background as a professional chemist did expose me to a lot of chemicals in the days before Health and Safety, so maybe that was it. Who can say?”
After weighing up the options, Archer decided on a cystectomy - having her entire bladder removed, and replaced with a substitute crafted from part of her small intestine. What's more, she opted to be treated at Addenbrooke’s rather than privately, “because I believe in the NHS. And anyway I don’t have private health insurance; I think that would be wrong in my position.”
The seven-hour operation was a complete success, and Archer admits that nowadays she can hardly tell the difference. “In some ways it works rather better than my natural bladder. You lose urgency, so there’s no feeling of ‘Argh, I must go!’ And I feel perfectly well.”
Did she ever think she might die? “No,” she says emphatically. “Cancer is a life-threatening disease, but I always thought ‘I’ll get through this, and I’ll be fine’.
“But it certainly concentrates your mind on what is important, because despite what I say, you are more aware of your own mortality. So that focuses you on using your time to best advantage, and evaluating the things that really matter.”
Like? “Oh well, nothing very original. Family, friends. But work matters to me very much too.”
And how. For the last 10 years, Archer has been chairman of Cambridge University Hospitals (that’s Addenbrooke’s and the Rosie, to you and me). Having served the maximum term, she stands down in October. Will she miss it? “I’m sure I will, but I’m probably ready for a new challenge.” So she won't be having a lengthy rest, then? “Oh no, no, no, no, no, no! I’m no good at doing nothing.”
Apparently she never was. Growing up in Surrey, Archer admits to being a hard-working, bookish child who fell in love with science at an early age. “At my primary school they had a ‘discovery room’ with all kinds of stuff that fascinated me: you could go up in your breaks and fiddle around with gold-leaf electroscopes and things like that. I just thought ‘this is for me’.”
She went on to study chemistry at Oxford where, in her second year, she met Jeffrey at a party. Was it love at first sight? “Not exactly, no, but I was very intrigued. He was different. He was somewhat older, and he had a Morris Minor. Gosh, that was tremendously sophisticated,” she laughs. “I was intrigued, and I guess I remain intrigued after 46 years of marriage.”
You seem, I say, like very different people. “Yes we are,” she nods. Is that why it works? “Possibly, yes. But we do share the same outlook on life, we’re hard-working, and of course we share a long history together. But no, we never have been particularly similar.”
They married soon after Archer had finished her degree. She was just 21, which seems terribly young: “By current standards yes. Of course I thought I was tremendously grown-up.”
Two postgraduate degrees followed, as did two sons (“they were darlings, absolute sweeties; it was great fun, but hard work of course”) and, when she was awarded a fellowship at Newnham, the family moved to Cambridge, where she taught for 10 years before quitting academia in favour of a more portfolio career.
But in spite of her professional success, life hasn’t always been easy. Her husband has been involved in some rather – um - colourful public episodes: the fraud allegations, the affairs, perjury, prison…. How does she cope?
“These things aren’t easy,” she shrugs. “I guess that the ups and downs have, however, taught me that, as the saying goes, ‘Whatever it is, it will pass.’ And perhaps my own career, my own slight detachment, have helped me survive these ups and downs. I’ve never invested my happiness in Jeffrey’s success, put it that way.”
Does she ever wish she’d married someone really dull? “No,” she laughs. “And I’ve learned something from everything we’ve been through.
“You always have a choice when you reach these difficult moments in life, and it’s a fairly binary choice between saying to yourself ‘I can cope with this’ and saying ‘I can’t face this’. If you go down the ‘coping’ route, that becomes a habit; and if you go down the ‘I can’t face it’ route, that becomes a habit too.”
She must have enormous strength of character, I suggest. “I think you have to be a realist. You can’t deny the fact of difficult experiences, but you can get through them. It’s not for me to say whether I have a strong character, but that’s my philosophy.”
Burying herself in work has clearly helped, and Archer hasn't let her fascination with science slip either. She’s written three books on solar energy conversion, and is considered an authority on the subject. But a rather different book is currently taking up her time.
“This year is the centenary of Rupert Brooke’s writing the poem The Old Vicarage, Grantchester, so I’m planning some events to celebrate, and I’ve written a new little book about the history of the house, which has been huge fun to research.”
It was 33 years ago that the Archers first came across the Vicarage, “and that was not love at first sight either! We saw it on a jolly damp Autumn day, with the mist rising from the river, and it was very cold.
“At the same time, curiously, the house next door came up: it had been modernised and I rather fancied it. But Jeffrey, who’s an incurable romantic, would have nothing but The Old Vicarage.
“And of course he was quite right. It was, and is, a lovely house with a fascinating history.” Will she ever leave? Absolutely not: “I’m going to be carried out feet-first,” she says, laughing again.
So there you have it; ‘Scary Mary’ is, in fact, rather warm and open. A pity, really, as 'Surprisingly Affable Mary’ isn’t nearly so neat…
Mary Archer - timeline
1944 (Dec) Mary Doreen Weeden is born to Doreen, a housewife, and Harold, an accountant
1956 Attends Cheltenham Ladies College
1963 Goes to St Anne’s College, Oxford
1966 Graduates with a double first; marries Jeffrey Archer
1968 PhD at Imperial College, London
1968-72 Teaches at two Oxford colleges
1972 Son William is born
1972 – 6 Fellow of the Royal Institute, London
1974 Son James is born
1976 – 86 Fellow of Newnham College and lecturer in chemistry at both Newnham and Trinity
1979 Moves into The Old Vicarage, Grantchester
1986 onwards Begins a portfolio career serving on various boards and committees, including the National Energy Foundation, Anglia Television, Lloyd’s, Cheltenham Ladies College, the Science Museum, and the Guild of Church Musicians
1987 Defends her husband in a libel trial, during which the judge famously puzzled over why Jeffrey would go to a prostitute when he had such a ‘fragrant’ wife at home (nevertheless, in 2001 he’s imprisoned for perjury and perverting the course of justice and serves two years of a four-year sentence)
2002 Appointed chairman of Addenbrooke’s (Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust)
March 2012 (c) Cambridge News