Thatcher and Gorbachev take a short stroll down memory lane

      It was nearly a week late but Baroness Thatcher has received a birthday present from the man she once said she could “do business with”.
      Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Soviet leader, presented her with a glass bowl yesterday during a 20-minute meeting in Central London. He had been invited to Lady Thatcher’s 80th birthday party at the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park hotel in the capital last Thursday but could not make it because he was not in the country. Instead they agreed to meet yesterday to exchange greetings and reminiscences in the London offices of Lord Powell of Bayswater who, as Charles Powell, was foreign affairs private secretary to the former Prime Minister. A spokeswoman for Lady Thatcher said: “They have not seen each other for a long time, so they had some catching-up to do. They discussed old times and went down memory lane”.

The Times, October 20, 2005