Carol Thatcher

“One of my fondest memories is of our skiing trips. Mum's approach to the sport was methodical, doing all the manoeuvres correctly and carefully.”

“As a mother in the 1950s, she did not impose the same strict religious routine on myself and my brother, Mark, though we were taken to church and Sunday school.”

“There is something about my mother that drives her critics slightly potty, so they resort to wild invention to get at her.”

“You need quite good shock absorbers and a sense of humour to be the Prime Minister's child.”

“All my childhood memories of my mother, is that of someone who was just superwoman, before the phrase was even invented.”

“I guess you can get politicians out of politics, but you can't get politics out of them.”

“It's not always easy to make polite, lunchtime conversation with a mother who for decades has had international leaders and statesmen to engage with in potentially world-changing discussions.”

“I never watch any movies or mini series regarding the Thatcher Years.”

“I never had the opportunity to become high-handed, because I had to go on earning a living as a journalist. Unlike my brother, I have never made swags of cash.”

“I left influencing the media to other members of my family, like my Mum.”

“Unloved is not the right word... but I never felt I made the grade. Mark was a blond, very attractive little boy, and sporty, so Dad was always teaching him to play cricket on the lawn... I always felt I came second out of two.”

“I remember the moment it first hit me that my mother's memory was no longer the extraordinary phenomenon it had been all my life. The realisation came as a thunderbolt.”

“The idea that my mother would go around swearing after a personal setback is ridiculous.”

“A mother cannot reasonably expect her grown-up children to boomerang back, gushing cosiness and make up for lost time. Absentee Mum, then Gran in overdrive is not an equation that balances.”

“I wrote a tennis book about Chris Evert and her then-husband, John Lloyd. It was called 'Lloyd on Lloyd' and became a No 1 bestseller.”

“When you're on the wrong side of 50 there are few opportunities for adventure. So you grab them while you can.”

“My mother's early life revolved around the Methodist faith.”

“I like being permanently single. It suits me perfectly.”

“Any spat involving the name of my mother, Britain's longestserving Prime Minister of the 20th century, seems to have pulling power.”

“That's the worst thing about dementia: it gets you every time. Sufferers look and act the same but beneath the familiar exterior something quite different is going on. They're in another world and you cannot enter.”