Thatcher was never a feminist. But no one was more feminine. "I love being a woman," she told me. "The most difficult thing for a woman in the House of Commons is to avoid stridency. I do my damndest." Nature was good to her. She had marvellous skin and superfine hair. She had it done every day she was Prime Minister. It showed. Her clothes were superbly chosen and well looked after but she had an extraordinary talent for keeping them uncreased. Most of the time she was watched from the opposite front bench by a gloweringly jealous Barbara Castle, "It is not natural," Castle growled. "It must be witchcraft. Sorcery!"

Thatcher was said to have no sense of humour. Not true. But it was dark, saturnine. She said to me: "As a young MP I held myself in check. I didn't know how you laughed in a decorous, House of Commons manner. Later, I didn't care." You could not be married to Denis Thatcher without seeing the funny side of life. He was an encyclopaedia of jokes, many of his own peculiar invention. I used to collect them. Then, in her retirement, I would cheer her up by reminding her of Denis's old stories: "The Charge of the Light Brigade joke." "The ‘you could almost hear it mooing' joke." "The old woman in the queue joke." And so on. She loved them. But she was like Gladstone, about whom an intimate said: "He saw jokes. But he was not often in a mood to be amused, when business had to be done."

It was said she did not listen. Again, absolutely untrue. It depended entirely on who was doing the talking. Thatcher could not bear waffle and was astute at spotting it, instantly. Then she switched off her attention, often rudely, I fear. But the moment she caught a whiff of shrewdness she listened hard. And if it gripped her, out she would whip her pencil and notebook. These handbag implements, by the way, must still exist. The notebook will make fascinating reading. 

Finally, though Thatcher was an intensely active person, she was not without a touch of the numinous. In her retirement I took her to Rome, to meet Pope Benedict XVI. As two people who loved doing business, and did it with infinite skill and dispatch, they warmed to each other. The Romans liked her too and gave her a tremendous cheer. She loved going behind the scenes at St Peter's and placed a wreath of tiny white roses on the tomb of Pope John Paul II, whom she had revered. On our return, when I said goodbye to her at Heathrow, she remarked, oddly enough: "I enjoyed our trip into the Church. How big it is. How small we are. We must do it again."