MARGARET Thatcher had just been become leader of the Conservatives when she visited Edinburgh and Glasgow in February 1975, and was mobbed by crowds in each. In Edinburgh’s St James’s Centre she had to abandon a walkabout when 3,000 people turned up to see her (the Glasgow Herald’s William Hunter noted that “otherwise sensible-looking Edinburgh matrons turned girlish about having laid hands” on her). In George Square, a thousand people waited to see her (above) before she addressed a rally at the nearby City Halls.

In her speech she lamented what she described as the Labour government’s intention of destroying private enterprise and promised that any future Tory government would aim to reduce taxation on earnings so as to provide incentives for work and enterprise. She said her party had to boost its fortunes north of the border: “Unless we can turn the tide [in terms of Scottish seats] it will be difficult, if not impossible, to secure the return of a Conservative government in Westminster with a working majority.” The establishment of a Scottish Assembly had to be a top priority, though within the framework of preserving the unity of the UK, she added.

“She speaks with her eyes, direct, of deepest blue, deep-set,” wrote Hunter. “With her mouth she smiles in mid-sentence, irrelevantly to what she is saying. Photographers love her, wasting miles of film.” He also described her as a “formidable lass, compact, efficient. She slips in and out of cars as if on ball-bearings.”