FIRST suspicions that there was a controlling hand hovering invisibly over me and my schoolmates dawned in primary school. A tray of plastic beakers was brought into the class and handed around as if they contained raspberry cordial.

For the next few minutes we had to sit swilling a bubblegum-pink fluoride liquid for the good of our teeth. Few things since have made me feel as nauseous. Thirty and more eight-year-old jaws moved like cows at the cud as we sloshed and skooshed before spitting the frothing mess back into our little plastic cups. Naturally some missed their target. It was at this point, every week, that I nearly parted company with lunch. Pity the poor teacher who had to collect the cups and dispose of them.

Despite being brought up in a God-fearing family, in which the Almighty was thought to play an active part in shaping our lives, it was the idea of state interference that chafed nerves and set indignation simmering. The dental indignity imposed upon schoolchildren was only one of several health initiatives implemented by post-war governments keen to improve the welfare of the population and reduce the growing strain on Beveridge’s idyll of free health care for all.

Daily milk in class was another though, unlike my husband who turns green at the memory of bottles gone lukewarm in the sun, I did not object to this. Whether it was cavity control, vitamin supplements or inoculations, children of my generation were treated like prize begonias. Did we say thank you? What do you think?

By the time we were old enough to read George Orwell’s Animal Farm, state had become a dirty word. If we had been familiar with Henry David Thoreau, we would have agreed with his verdict that “the church, the state, the school, the magazine, think they are liberal and free. It is the freedom of the prison-yard”. Consequently, we weren’t in the slightest grateful for our schooling, free university education or dental and doctor appointments, taking them for granted. And we were far too self-centred to consider the old, with their state pension, subsidised travel and winter fuel allowance.

Many of us over whom the shadow of Margaret Thatcher loomed in our formative years still view the state with instinctive unease and dislike. To this day it carries an echo of oppression, an all-powerful presence to which we are in thrall, obliged to obey its edicts yet blown first in one direction then another by competing party ideologies.

It was therefore salutary to hear playwright Alan Bennett recently praise the state from the bottom of his heart for all it had done for him. In a BBC documentary he decried the term “nanny state”, but said there was no reason it could not be “maternal”. From his childhood in Leeds to old age in London and Yorkshire, it had educated him at school, university, and in first-class public libraries. Then and even now, it has kept him and his family as well as they could hope to be.

Nor were his comments sentimental or maudlin. This was not a man airbrushing the past. Few political commentators are sharper than Bennett, whose well-mannered reflections are frequently barbed. He simply recognises the helping hand he was given and the opportunities offered without which he would not be the man, and writer, he has become.

How timely, then, to hear Theresa May talk about her plans for the state on her watch. Despite her seeming sincerity, there was no chance she could shake off the bad smell that still lingers after Mrs Thatcher’s assertion that there is “no such thing” as society. That nasty little catchphrase has been seared onto the collective memory, aided by successive Tory governments committed to upholding this pernicious and ignorant creed. By comparison, Mrs May’s vision of what she would like the state to do sounds like a report from the Rowntree Foundation or the Society of Friends. Compassion and concern are its bedrock: help not just for the poor who depend on welfare but also for the middling who are struggling to stay afloat. Better care for children and adults with mental health issues, an increase in housing stock in areas of need; and that is just for starters.

In true vicarage mode, the Prime Minister declared: “The shared society is one that doesn’t just value our individual rights but focuses rather more on the responsibilities we have to one another. It’s a society that respects the bonds that we share as a union of people and nations – the bonds of family, community, citizenship, strong institutions.”

Her stance is no doubt meant to indicate a departure from David Cameron’s notion of the “big society”. In his blithe utopia, countless national responsibilities were hived off to private companies that could supply whatever he thought the people required, at a cost. This catchy label meant Mr Cameron could trim the body politic, and curry favour with those who, understandably, abhorred the bloated civil service that had grown more tentacles than an octopus under previous administrations.

Mrs May’s crusade against “stigma” and “injustice”, even though in similar vein, is more nuanced. All the same, it amounts to nothing until she fleshes out her proposals. Instead of outlining concrete new initiatives, she seems, as always, more intent on laying down a philosophical framework within which her as yet decidedly vague policies will be conducted. In this, her approach is not so different from her predecessor’s, who also emphasised the need for kindness. But what is clear is that the Prime Minister is eager to reshape public perceptions of the state. Rather than a bullying force that makes people submit to its will, she depicts its function as an aide or an abetter that helps people improve their lives materially, socially or psychologically.

It is a big promise, a big ask. When crucial areas of public service, such as parts of the NHS, are barely functioning at a basic level, it is not wilfully pessimistic or cynical to reserve judgment, and foresee trouble ahead. Yet Mrs May’s positively charitable talk of the role of government is not entirely meaningless either, despite remaining largely theoretical. If it achieves nothing else – and that is entirely possible – it is a reminder of the place a well-conceived and well-conducted state can and should hold.

In recent years, governance has fallen far short of being respectable or reliable on several essential fronts: brutal cuts to libraries, grants for education and welfare for the disabled, the ruthless closing of theatres and concert halls and the declawing of unions, to name but a few. Only by talking about the state we are in, however, can we clarify what we need and why. And while there is no such thing as the perfect state, the debate Mrs May has triggered might help us define our ideal. We could do a great deal worse than start with Bennett’s notion of “maternal”, a benign, wise and nurturing force on whom we can rely – up to a point.