In July 1975, then-Tory leader Margaret Thatcher won the admiration of fishermen when she gallantly took a boat trip in choppy seas at Brighton.

No amount of advice from the fishermen could stop her trying her sea legs.

“You’ll get wet, ” they warned. “I don’t mind getting wet all over, ” she replied.

So she donned a headscarf and clambered aboard the Peace and Plenty, skippered by Alan Rooney.

With her went reluctant-looking Brighton MPs Julian Amery and Andrew Bowden and a clutch of photographers.

She taught them all a lesson in keeping cool, calm and collected.

They came back 15 minutes later wet through and bedraggled, but Mrs Thatcher landed looking composed and immaculate.

“I haven’t had so much fresh air in ages, ” she said.

Five years later, the newly elected Prime Minister returned to Brighton a superstar.

From the moment she arrived at the Tory Party conference, she was the focus of all attention.

There was a crush of cameramen as she swept regally into the centre, with 5,000 delegates rising spontaneously to their feet.

Later she toured conference stalls, admiring badges, souvenirs and fundraising efforts.

She stopped to receive a box of Kingdom Cox apples from the British Apple Growers.

But like royalty, she would not be pictured eating one. And as a housewife, she naturally asked how much they were.

In August 1986, nearly two years after the bombing that could have killed her, the Prime Minister made a dramatic return at the reopening of the Grand Hotel.

In a defiant gesture to terrorism she returned for the first time since the IRA blast and returned the Union flag which had flown over the ruins.

It had been given to her for safe-keeping.

She said: “With its new battle honours the flag will fly over the Grand in its new prominent position.

“It will fly there with special pride to show that, happen what may, the British spirit will once again triumph.”

Just over a decade ago, Baroness Thatcher was due to appear at the Brighton Festival when she was forced to pull out on doctor’s advice.

After suffering a series of mini-strokes just before the event in March 2002, her office announced she would never make a public speech again.