Julia Somerville, BBC
Mrs Thatcher is back in London tonight after a helicopter tour of Southern England. She appealed to Conservative supporters to remember to vote tomorrow. She said she hoped and believed the Tories would win but she cautioned against over confidence.
John Simpson, BBC
Above the Southern English countryside, Mrs Thatcher was preparing to spend a last day on the hustings in a way which, helicopters apart, Lloyd George or Stanley Baldwin would have recognised as campaigning. Up to now, Mrs Thatcher has mostly concentrated on visiting successful businesses. But today she made an exception and went to a centre for the disabled.
MT
Bingo. I haven't ever played Bingo. It really is fun is it?
Old Age Pensioners
Yes.
John Simpson, BBC
Outside Southampton, there was an even more traditional occasion—a genuine, old-fashioned public meeting with some genuine, old-fashioned attacks on the other side.
MT
[speaking through hand-held microphone] The alternative is not the Labour party you knew of Attlee, or of Gaitskell, or of Harold Wilson. The alternative is a Labour Party which has sold out to the militants, but kept them quiet during the election [cheers] and kept quiet its policies. [applause]
John Simpson, BBC
And there was a barn-storming finish:
MT
And again. Hip, hip, hooray. [cheers] Louder—you can do better than that. [more cheers] [Tory theme tune]
John Simpson, BBC
Calling for ten more years isn't now officially encouraged in the party, but they did it just the same. Along her way, hoping to speak to her, was Mr Charlie Milton.
MT
Mr Milton is 104.
John Simpson, BBC
That means he was first eligible to vote in the 1906 election which produced a landslide, though for the Liberals over the Conservatives. Eighty years on, as he got his signed photograph, Charlie Milton was planning to vote Tory.
Working a crowd of well-wishers is always invigorating,
MT
My rule? It's the same as it was in the beginning, we fight every inch of the way. [end p1]
John Simpson, BBC
And to end the campaign dominated by the photo opportunity, there was a group photo with the Fleet Street photographers and their T-shirts. Stanley Baldwin probably wouldn't have liked that at all.