DOCTORS have ordered Baroness Thatcher not to undertake any further public speaking and so during her time on QE2 she only spoke privately to her Cunard hosts.
However, in the new book, QE2, Forty Years Famous, which traces the history of the liner, Margaret Thatcher writes of her memories of the Cunard ship.
"I never had so many sleepless nights as Prime Minister than during the weeks the liner was journeying to the South Atlantic as troopship,'' wrote Baroness Thatcher.
"I wrote in my memoirs, The Downing Street Years, that I do not think I have ever lived so tensely or intently as during the whole of that time.
"When the military chiefs first suggested that QE2 join the war effort, such was my concern that I queried whether it was truly necessary to involve the great ship.
"My family fell in love with Cunard many years before.
We used to spend summer holidays in Seaview on the Isle of Wight and watch the old Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary steam past on their way to Southampton.
"I remain a devoted fan.''
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