Jon Snow's personal recollection of Mrs Thatcher airing tonight

8 April 2013

Today it was announced that Baroness Thatcher, Britain’s first woman Prime Minister, has died at the age of 87 after a lengthy illness.

In Maggie & Me – a one hour special airing tonight on channel 4 at 8pm - Jon Snow provides a personal recollection of Mrs Thatcher – the woman, the leader, the icon, the hate figure - the biggest British political figure of his lifetime.

Mrs Thatcher’s rise to leader of the Conservative Party and then the country spans the same period as Jon’s own early career as a successful young television reporter and then newsreader.

In 1979 Jon was a young reporter working for ITN. And amazingly on the 4th May he was actually given the job of reporting Mrs Thatcher’s arrival in Downing Street for the first time – Live.

What he certainly didn’t know at the time was that he would be following Mrs Thatcher around the world on and off for the next 11 and half years.

From the election trail to Europe, from Washington to Casablanca, she dominated his reporting life, and the lives of everyone who lived through her reign. 

This is not an obituary and it is certainly not a review of Mrs Thatcher’s legacy. It’s more personal than that.  It is Jon’s own recollection of intersecting with the most powerful woman most of us had ever known. 

Produced by ITN Productions for Channel 4