The Brighton bomb left Margaret Tebbit paralysed for life. She has been confined to a wheelchair for 20 years and can barely feed herself.

But the former nurse, who was sleeping next to husband Norman when the 100lb device went off, has never let the evil act of bomber Patrick Magee defeat her.

She said: "It changed my life completely - not to be able to hold your grandchildren, not to be able to push them, not to be able to hold a child's hand and walk along the street or give them a cuddle.

"I feed myself but I still have to have help sometimes. But I am alive and I am lucky."

The couple have remained close throughout their marriage.

Lord Tebbit still looks after his wife.

They were holding hands when the bomb went off and desperately tried to cling on through the rubble.

When the firefighters reached them, they were still lying side by side and Margaret demanded they help her husband first.

Lady Tebbit said: "I don't remember much apart from him grabbing my hand as we fell.

"I can remember when we were blasted apart and I lost his hand. It's always better if you've got someone's hand. A good nurse always knows that.

"I remember rubble falling and calling out for it to stop and Norman telling me to save my breath and me telling him to do the same.

"I was worried about his breathing because I could hear he was having difficulties breathing.

"You have to keep going, you cannot let yourself go to sleep. I didn't know if more rubble was going to come down on my head but you just hope to keep going."

She smiled as she remembered telling the rubble to stop falling, adding: "Bossy as always. It's a normal reaction. I know I'm bossy. It saved me.

"We constantly spoke to each other until we spoke about the children.

"Then I had to not talk about it because I found that more upsetting than anything else."

Lord Tebbit, who was plain Mr Tebbit at the time, was fast asleep when the bomb exploded at 2.54am.

He said: "Suddenly we woke and I realised the chandelier was shaking in an unpleasing way.

"The place started to disintegrate and the ceiling started to come down.

"We were side by side in the bed when it happened and we were side by side in the ruins."

Television footage of Mr Tebbit being pulled from the wreckage was beamed across the world.

The former Trade and Industry Secretary says he is glad the images were shown to illustrate the full horror of terrorism.