Labour MP Frank Field, revealed last week as an intimate of Thatcher, describes their unlikely relationship and his role in her last night in power

A week ago The Sunday Times published an extract from John Sergeant’s latest book, which casts me in the role of a latter-day kingmaker -not, ironically, within my own party but in the succession to Margaret Thatcher’s leadership of the Conservative party. I write of these events simply to set out my recollections

Thatcher is happy for me to do so.

It may surprise some, even today, that it is possible to have political friendships that transcend traditional party divisions. In reality there has always been common ground, even in the highly polarised Thatcher era.

I was elected MP for Birkenhead in 1979, the same general election that delivered the premiership to Thatcher. Even from the opposition benches it seemed blindingly obvious to me that I should try as much as an ordinary backbencher could to influence her thinking. Birkenhead had evolved because of its shipyard and the shop stewards at Cammell Laird were anxious that I formed an all-party group of local MPs to lobby on their behalf.

Thatcher remains a complex and enigmatic character, but two traits became apparent to me: her humour and her resolve. On one occasion, when one of her gatekeepers had prevented me from seeing her, I threatened to doorstep her, to lobby her about the agenda I had to hand, but added that those same gatekeepers were making her a prisoner to a right-wing clique.

Later that evening I got a message saying that she would see me after the 10pm vote. I voted and moved to the Tory exit. She was engaged in conversation with backbenchers brave enough to take her on. “Shall I follow you?” I called out.

“People usually do,” was her smiling retort.

Her resolve was on display again during and after a meeting I had with her in 1990 on her return from meeting President Bush Sr, just prior to the first Gulf war.

Energy was fizzing from her as she paced about her study. “People need backbone,” was her refrain.

I finally persuaded her to focus on Cammell Laird. She admired the bravery of the workforce: when militants occupied the yard, workers had walked through the bogus picket line and had the political riffraff evicted.

But the yard had no work and I was anxious to get the prime minister’s support for some investment.

Our conversation about Cammell Laird followed the regular pattern. In response to my lobbying she replied: “But everybody is asking me to do this. You do understand.” Finally she agreed that at the next opportunity she would use her best endeavours to deliver a big programme of inward investment and regional assistance.

Some days later I was stopped by David Hunt, then a cabinet minister and my near-neighbour in Wirral West. “What have you been asking the prime minister?” he inquired.

“How did you know I had seen her?” I replied.

“I know because her ministers have just been circulated with a prime ministerial minute setting down what she agreed to do on inward investment and regional assistance for Birkenhead,” he said.

Nobody else had been present at our meeting but presumably immediately afterwards she had dictated a minute on her decision. Here was a lesson in how a prime minister could master the civil service machine so that it carried out her decisions.

Sadly she did not last long enough at No10 for it to be implemented. All too quickly the final challenge to her leadership began.

On the evening before she delivered her valedictory speech to the House of Commons, Chris Patten and I were billed to speak to the trustees of the Pilgrim Trust. Chris and I had known each other since he was director of the Conservative research department and I had lobbied him on behalf of the Child Poverty Action Group which I then headed.

The trustees and I stood around waiting for Chris to arrive, unaware that a quarter of a mile away the most extraordinary events were unfolding as Thatcher interviewed her cabinet individually.

The door crashed open and Chris stumbled in, smoothing down his hair. “It has been the worst day of my life,” was how he greeted us. We hung on his every word as he told us what was happening in Westminster.

Before walking up to the meeting I had noticed how Michael Heseltine was moving around the Commons vacuuming up the vote. All of a sudden the Tory party was expressing revulsion at being led by a woman. It was the most awful atmosphere to experience as MPs who owed their very existence to her openly expressed their hatred.

Chris and I made the short journey back to Westminster in his car. I asked him whether he thought the cabinet had told Thatcher to her face that she was finished. He replied, “Not actually.”

I was appalled by how a party can behave to a leader who had won them so many decisive consecutive election victories. I thought aloud about whether I should go and see her. Chris said this would be “a very good idea”.

I phoned No10 and asked for Peter Morrison, her parliamentary private secretary – the person charged with keeping her in touch with the views of backbenchers. A familiar voice answered the phone. Peter Morrison was not there; he had gone home.

“Gone home?” I exclaimed. “On a night like this?” “Yes,” came the reply, evidently agreeing with my puzzlement. “Is the prime minister there?” I asked.

“We are not supposed to say,” said the voice, “but the prime minister has come home.”

The reply was eloquent. The word “home” buzzed in my head. Home, for me, equates with security. “I think I will come over and see her,” I replied. A surreal evening was well and truly under way.

I walked over to Downing Street, through the police barrier and up to the door of No10. One of the secretariat greeted me and asked why I had come. “I have come to see the prime minister,” I replied.

“The prime minister is busy. If you write a note it will be taken in to her,” I was told.

I could not possibly write what I wished to say. I had brought work with me and moved to the waiting room.

Once safely there I began to complete the telephone calls I wished to make.

Overhead a large bluebottle circled, repeatedly dive-bombing me.

Tradition has it that the men in grey suits call on prime ministers to tell them that their time is up.

A gentleman in a grey suit indeed appeared, but only to ask me what I would like to drink. “Coffee,” I replied. “I think it will be a long evening.”

The next person to appear did not wear a grey suit. It was Norman Tebbit, who also wanted to know why I had come. “I will happily tell you, but as you are the gatekeeper to her campaign, I doubt whether you will let me see her,” I said. “I have come to tell her she is finished.”

“If you promise to tell her that, you can see her shortly,” he replied.

He was as good as his word. In no time the prime minister appeared. Our traditional roles were now reversed. She suddenly looked smaller and incredibly vulnerable. She looked at me as I imagine a patient would who is about to receive the worst possible news from a consultant.

I moved one of the chairs over so that they were side by side and sat her down: “I have come to tell you that you are finished, prime minister. If you don’t announce you are resigning before tomorrow’s confidence debate, you will be torn apart in public by your own side.”

“But it is so unfair. I have never lost them an election.”

“I am not discussing fairness, prime minister. You cannot now go out on a top note, but you still have the option of going out on a high note. But for that you need to resign before tomorrow’s debate.”

Her mood understandably fluctuated. After expressing three times how unfair events had turned out, she then quickly added that she, too, thought it was all over but nobody in Downing Street was telling her that.

I explained that I had never before experienced an atmosphere as though a virus was sweeping the Tory benches in the House of Comons. Heseltine was simply sweeping up her votes.

“Ah,” she said. “Mr Heseltine is a very bad man.”

“Mr Heseltine will win,” I replied, “unless you have your candidate in place.”

“Who is my candidate?” was her response.

I was staggered. “It is obvious, isn’t it? John Major.”

“John Major,” she replied. “Why do you say him?”

“I had assumed he was your choice. He was the first of the 1979 intake to be promoted to the cabinet. As you had given him a go at practically all the senior cabinet posts, I assumed you were preparing him as your successor.”

“But Mr Major is a very young man.”

“Time will take care of that, prime minister.” And, immediately, she returned to expressing her anguish at the unfairness of events.

She asked why I had come to see her. Even at this point she showed that ability to probe the essence of our friendship.

“You have been good in delivering things for my constituency when I was able to make the case for change,” I replied. I recalled those public officials whom she had sacked after I had complained of their incompetence or inaction and who subsequently failed to justify their actions to her. “I owe you this conversation, prime minister.”

At that point I noticed the door to the waiting room was open. Ah, I thought, Tebbit is listening to make sure that I delivered the message. He was always protective of her long-term interests. His entrance signalled the end of our conversation. “I have arranged for you to go out another way,” she suggested.

“But,” I blurted out, “I walked in through Downing Street and the automatic television camera has recorded me coming in. It is clearly going to be an interesting story if the camera doesn’t record me leaving.” She laughed.

Only later did I realise how lazy the media were, that nobody would check the camera and they would be totally dependent on her office telling them who came and went that evening.

Not a single reporter was doing their duty of observing the comings and goings in Downing Street on one of the most extraordinary days since the fall of the Chamberlain government. As I left Thatcher I asked her what time Denis was coming home.

“He will be home well before midnight,” she replied, “and I will tell him what you have said.”

The prime minister announced next day that she was resigning. True to form she opened the censure debate at 3.30 that afternoon.

Her voice sounded different as she fought back tears. But one Labour backbencher, Dave Nellist, came to her rescue with a partisan question. She effortlessly hooked his question to the boundary and the whole tempo of the speech changed. She was now in a different gear.

Dennis Skinner, always one to recognise a fighter, joined in the heckling. The prime minister replied that she was enjoying this. As indeed she was.

The speech ended on a high note. The Tories who had been butchering her behind her back cheered. But their tormented faces told a different story. Many of them were beginning to question the wisdom if not the ethics of their actions.

A few days later I was talking again to Hunt. “I wonder what the long-term consequences of these events will be,” he said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I wonder how and when a political party recovers after an act of regicide,” he replied.

More than a decade later his musing is still relevant.