I left school at the beginning of the 1970s. There were women's jobs and men's jobs and jobs for the working class and jobs for the middle class. It was considered shocking to suggest stepping out of the expected role. The world of men's work was considered real work and was dominated by the unions, whose leaders were elected by a minority, the union members, normally by a public show of hands. Unions were very strong even though the majority were outside them.
I was a nurse as I was expected to be. There was a lot of job demarkation. We used to do dressings at the patient's bed and the curtains around closed so we needed the overhead light. If the bulb had gone it could only be changed by the electrician and he would only come when the shop steward said he could which mightn't be for weeks so the nurses each had their own light bulbs which they would quietly change behind the curtains when they did the dressing, then change the bulbs back. I remember keeping the drugs like insulin in the kitchen fridge which was opened and shut all day so never very cold because the drug fridge stopped working and no electrician would look at it for weeks. We were supposed to call porters to help lift heavier patients but they would only come at certain times so we had the choice of a desperate patient reduced to wetting or soiling the bed or trying to lift them ourselves. Like me most of us injured our backs. The same with the kitchen staff who often refused to provide food for the patients outside the normal times and would report any nurse who sneeked in to make a cup of tea or slice of toast. The nurse would have to make an official apology. The shop steward where I worked hated the nurses, he thought we were middle class snobs and proudly claimed he would try to make our lives difficult. If we complained he would threaten to call the men out on strike.
I knew someone who worked at a big car manufacturer. The night shift were allowed to bring camp beds in so that they could lie down most of the shift because it was night time. If management complained a strike was threatened.
So for many people Thatcher was a heroine because she broke the stranglehold that the unions had over everyone even the majority who weren't in unions. 29 million working days were lost to strikes in 1979 compared to 322,000 in 2016.
Years later I had a job where I met a lot of ex-miners. They were bitter about Thatcher destroying their jobs but when asked about their sons going down the mine they would say that they and their wives worked flat out so that their children didn't have to do such an awful job that destroyed their health. I wonder how many privately voted for Thatcher to help avoid their sons going down a mine.
School milk was originally provided for all ages. It was the Labour minister Edward Short who stopped it for secondary school age children. Thatcher stopped it for over 7s and when we joined the EEC KS1 were offered subidised milk under the European scheme. That was still running a few years ago but I don't know what happened with Brexit.
Council houses were not always fairly allocated. There was a great deal of stringpulling went on and often the ones who needed them most had no chance of getting one as they didn't know the right people. As anyone who got one could pass it down through their family they didn't become available even if they were in public ownership. At least cost of maintenance didn't fall on the ratepayer when they were sold. It was awful that the capital released didn't go into building more though.
I know this goes against the usual theme of Thatcher being a dreadful woman, but while many people were very comfortable under the British system of the 1960s and early 70s, a lot were struggling and found it hard to improve their situation and were ready to vote for someone who got it sorted out.