AN unexpected protest in Salisbury’s Butcher Row sparked up during Baroness Thatcher’s 1980 visit to Salisbury but she remained “immovable” according to the police chief of the time.

Frank Lockyer, who was divisional police commander for south Wiltshire, said he feared the situation would get out of control as Baroness Thatcher faced protestors during her walk-about in the city.

“I was worried that we’d lost it,” he said. “We were making our way from the Poultry Cross to where her car was parked in Queen Street and the street was packed with protesters.

“I offered her an escape route through the Currys shop, which linked through to New Canal, so she could avoid them. But she was having none of it and would not back down.

“She kept going through the protest, smiling all the way.

She was indomitable.”

Mr Lockyer said some of Baroness Thatcher’s colleagues chose to nip through the Currys store, but by avoiding the protesters they incurred the wrath of their leader. “She was furious with them,” he said. “She never wanted to lose face and take the easy way out.

“It was a pretty tense situation, I was calling in extra officers all the time, but she was not going to let it stop her.”

A week after the visit Mr Lockyer received a photograph from Downing Street bearing Baroness Thatcher’s signature. It came with a letter thanking him for his actions during her visit and still hangs on the wall of his study today.

“One thing people have been saying is how good she was at thanking people and I’d have to agree,” he said. “No matter what you thought about her she did have incredible spirit.”