Margaret Thatcher death location, The Ritz

Some say Margaret Thatcher was easily Britain's greatest post-war politician whereas some flinch at the prospect of her like returning again. Whatever your views she went from a shop to the top. She was born above her parent's grocery shop in Lincolnshire and made a path to power unlike any woman had done before.

While in London I walked by The Ritz hotel where she finally conked out. The steps at her Belgravia home were too much so she moved (probably free of charge) into the five-star hotel owned by the billionaire Barclays brothers (no doubt ardent fans.) For months she lived in the Executive Suite - about the size of a small flat - and didn't go out much. She could sometimes be seen sitting on a bench overlooking Green Park. No high heels - just flat sandals and a walking stick. Months before her end she'd been in hospital to have a growth removed from her bladder and been wobbly on her legs since. Occasionally she ate in the hotel's restaurant and guests were known to give her a standing ovation upon her entrance. Once she amazed diners by singing her favourite wartime song at supper, asking the hotel pianist to play A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square.

She spent most days in the £3,660/night suite reading, receiving friends and listening to the radio. Her husband Denis had died a decade earlier, her kids lived abroad and she’d descended into a fog of intermittent dementia. For a few months two carers looked after the Iron Lady (a term she disliked) who was weak having suffered a series of strokes. She was lucid enough to recognise the symptoms of a stroke when the final one occurred one morning when she was sat in read reading. Suddenly she began to feel ill and probably knew another stroke was about to assail her. This one on a Monday in April 2013 was the one that pushed her over the edge of life and she died at 11.28am. What matter she was reading is unknown though as the Barclays brothers owned the Daily Telegraph newspaper it was probably that day's edition.

She remained in the hotel for nearly 13 hours before she was driven away in a private ambulance (with a police helicopter above.) Her twins Mark and Carol were abroad at the time of her death and accusations followed that they had rarely visited their fast-ailing mum.

I've passed The Ritz a few times and always thought the entrance on Arlington Street is a letdown for such a grand building. They do it up at Christmas but for the rest of the year it doesn't seem to match the quality of the ornate interior. There looked to be a wedding bash going on the day I passed. A few women in powder blue frocks were going inside for the service. I looked up at all the windows and wasn't sure which was The Executive Suite. It's probably round the back as those rooms are quieter and look onto open parkland. Oddly a few doors down from the hotel sits Arlington House where Paul Raymond the porn publisher lived and died. I wondered if the Porn King and the Power Queen ever met.

A quick Ritz data download:-

1) The Ritz is the only hotel in the world to have its name in the Oxford English Dictionary, which it entered in 1925. Rizty means fashionable, glamorous and expensive. 

2) The width of each corridor was designed to enable two ladies to walk comfortably in side by side.

3) During World War II, Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle and Dwight D. Eisenhower met for summit meetings.

4) The Queen did the conga through The Ritz hotel in 1945 on VE Day with her sister, Margaret, after slipping incognito into the crowds that were celebrating in central London.

5) It was the first hotel in the world to allow women to come unaccompanied by a male chaperone for Afternoon Tea.

6) In The Rivoli Bar American actress Tallulah Bankhead famously sipped Champagne from her slipper during a press conference in 1951.

7) Ritz porters pride themselves on being able to fulfill any request but it has to be legal.

8) Sometimes there are more staff than guests.

9) Large portions of the 1999 romantic comedy Notting Hill were filmed in and around the hotel.

The Executive Suite where she died (it was the size of a small flat)...

The restaurant where Mrs T once sang...

Somewhere near the end...