Premier gives hope

Warm applause, tinged with relief that the Prime Minister was alive and well greeted Margaret Thatcher on Friday.

And the first thing she touched on at the annual lunch of Finchley and Friern Barnet Conservative Women was the Brighton bombing two weeks earlier.

“It is one of those things that you think will never happen to you, and I hope I never experience it again,” she said.

“It is particularly on our minds today as a private funeral is being held for Anthony Berry, and we are thinking of his wife and family.”

She was speaking in response to a toast to the Conservative Party by chairman, Esther Levi.

Sir Anthony Berry, MP for Southgate, was killed in the explosion at the Grand Hotel and his wife, Lady Sarah Berry, received back injuries.

Mrs Thatcher spoke about defence, the Common Market, unemployment and the ecomony, but received the greatest response when she brought up the miners' strike.

She said she was particularly disturbed by picket line violence. She expressed her admiration for the police and was loudly applauded.

“Their job is to see that those miners who want to work, shall get to work. We shall never, never, give in to mob violence,” she declared.

A vote of thanks was given by Doris Stean who said: “She has given us hope which we all need.”

Like, Mrs Levi recalled, when Mrs Thatcher was first chosen as the Conservative candidate for Finchley and remembered her initial surprise at the candidate's sex.

However, she was soon to realise what an outstanding woman she was going to be, said Mrs Stean.

The toastmaster, Sue Thurlow, secretary of the Conservative women's constituency committee, was thanked for arranging the four-course lunch, at the Firs Banque ting Suite, Winchmore Hill.