Premier returns to parliamentary roots

Maggie forgets Gulf worries in tour around constituency

Making her first constituency visit since the start of the Gulf Crisis, the Prime Minister marked her appearance in Finchley last week with a determined effort to devote her attention to local, rather than global, matters.

And as far as the 120 excited pupils at Oak Lodge School, Heath View, East Finchley, were concerned, not even the outbreak of war with Iraq would have excused her from keeping an appointment to open their new overnight stay centre.

The £10,000 residential lodge—a converted mobile home—will be used by the pupils with learning difficulties to help develop day-to-day living skills.

A year-long fund raising campaign run by the school association “TOLSA” provided the cash for the centre—including £7,000 raised from a barbecue earlier this year organised by the Greek community.

Before squeezing into the converted mobile home—which she praised as “both imaginitive and practical” —with the Mayor of Barnet, Cllr Roy Shutz, the school's head, Peter Carney and some of the school's pupils, Mrs Thatcher presented a cheque for £1,000 to the school.

The money was a donation from her 30th “anniversary ball,” celebrating her 30 years as a member of Parliament.

Her visit to Oak Lodge continued with a visit to the school's work preparation department, where she saw the school's computer system which is used to prepare young people for the world of work.

On the day that inflation soared to 10.6 per cent and mortgage raise showing no signs of coming down, it was perhaps not an auspicious time for Mrs Thatcher to be launching a new mortgage scheme.

But the Woolwich Building Society—which has teamed up with Barnet Health Authority to give discounts on its rates to health service employees—could not have been more pleased with the Prime Minister's personal endorsement of its scheme.

Presenting a certificate to the first mortgage applicant, Samina Syed, 25, a radiographer at Edgware, Mrs Thatcher acknowledged the problems of finding affordable homes in outer London—but sensibly avoided any comment on how higher mortgage rates had worsened the problem.

Later in the day, Mrs Thatcher held a supper party with 200 members of Friern Barnet Conservatives.