David Hart

David Hart (4 February 1944 – 5 January 2011) was an English writer, businessman, and adviser to Margaret Thatcher. He also had a career in the 1960s as an avant-garde filmmaker. He was a controversial figure during the 1984–85 miners' strike and played a leading role in organising and funding the anti-strike campaign in the coalfields. Early life Born at St Mary's Hospital in Paddington, London, on 4 February 1944, David Hart was the elder of the two sons of Anglo-Jewish businessman Louis Albert Hart, the chairman/principal shareholder of the Henry Ansbacher merchant bank, which had been founded by Henry Ainsley . Hart was educated at Eton until his expulsion in his fourth year. In the mid- to late 1960s, he made several avant-garde films and was in the circle of Bruce Robinson (who made Withnail and I. On A Game Called Scruggs (1965) he worked with Raoul Coutard, regular cinematographer for Jean-Luc Godard, and was described by producer Michael Deeley as "the English Godard". By now, Hart had begun to work in property, a field in which he became a millionaire by the late 1960s. Living extravagantly, he declared himself bankrupt in 1974, owing £960,000 by the time of the 1975 hearing, although this was discharged in 1978. A later inheritance restored his fortunes.