Margaret Thatcher trivia

•Special letter

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher offered to meet a distressed child whose parents were breaking up, newly released files show. The girl wrote to Mrs Thatcher, who received between 2,000 and 3,000 letters a week, in June 1981 asking for help to stop her parents divorcing. Mrs Thatcher wrote a “long personal reply” and meet the girl, records show.

•Gaddafi and Saddam among recipients of Christmas cards

Margaret Thatcher’s 1981 Christmas card list gives an insight into the way Britain’s view of the world has changed over 30 years.

Foreign heads of state who received seasonal greetings from Mrs Thatcher in 1981 included Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi – the card was addressed “To the Leader of the Great First of September Revolution” – and Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

Gaddafi was killed in October 2011 after current Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron ordered the RAF to mount air raids in support of a rebel uprising in Libya.

Saddam was hanged for crimes against humanity in 2006 following the 2003 invasion of Iraq by British and American troops.

The 1981 Downing Street Christmas card featured a photograph of Mrs Thatcher and husband Denis, who died in 2003 aged 88, in front of their Christmas tree at Chequers.

• Ronald Reagan’s random doodles caught British PM’s eye

Mrs Thatcher bagged a set of doodles sketched by United States president Ronald Reagan at a meeting of a group of the world’s most powerful leaders more than 30 years ago.

Mrs Thatcher, now Lady Thatcher, sat next to Mr Reagan at the Ottawa Summit – attended by leaders of the world’s seven richest countries – in July 1981 and noticed him doodling, according to a historian who has analysed files.

She is thought to have picked up the Republican leader’s sheet of drawings during a break in proceedings in Canada and preserved them for posterity among her private papers.

The doodles are among private 1981 Thatcher papers being released by archivists who have catalogued the former Conservative leader’s files.

Records show that Mrs Thatcher and Mr Reagan were joined at the “group of seven” (G7) summit by Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau, French president Francois Mitterrand, West German chancellor Helmut Schmidt, Italian president Giovanni Spadolini and Japanese prime minister Zenko Suzuki.

Mr Reagan, US president from 1981-89, drew seven sketches: five heads, a man’s torso and an eye. But Mr Reagan, who died in 2004 aged 93, gave no clue about the identity of his subjects and did not sign the paper, although Mrs Thatcher wrote “Ronald Reagan’s ‘doodling’ at the Ottawa Conference” in the bottom right-hand corner of the sheet.

Mrs Thatcher agreed to her personal papers being housed at Churchill College, Cambridge nearly a decade ago and documents relating to earlier years have already been released.