A Prime Minister drops in to see her vision being realised
A Topical tour of her Finchley constituency, on Friday, highlighted the way Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's constituents are coping with subjects close to her heart—the single market, science and technology and computer success.
First stop was the 1992 exhibition being held at Euro House, Ballards Lane, Finchley.
Euro House is the home of Euro Cellular, a new company which will sell car and portable telephones to Europe.
Mrs Thatcher was met by Marc Albert, the 29-year-old founder and managing director of Euro Cellular, who set up the business after selling his first company—Barnet based ECT—for £11m last year.
He introduced the Finchley MP to many exhibitors including Barclays Bank, a group of Finchley solicitors, Euro tunnel and Woodhouse Sixth Form College, based in Woodhouse Road, North Finchley.
Pausing at the Woodhouse College stand, she questioned staff about the college's aspirations.
She heard of the emphasis on languages, computers and their plan to set up exchange visits, hopefully including work experience in European countries.
And before she left, Mrs Thatcher made the first GSM link telephone call to Euro Cellular' Paris office. GSM will be the new European standard system for cellular telephones in 1992.
The welcoming party at the Barnet Teachers Centre. North Finchley High Road, included Chairman of Barnet Council's education committee, Roy Schutz; deputy director of education, John Bailey and the teachers' centre organiser, Keith Hewett.
After dropping in on a session for teachers learning how to teach these subjects to the borough's primary school pupils, Mrs Thatcher had a preview of the Primary Science and Technology Open Week, which started on Monday.
The last stop of the afternoon was to the offices of Blyth Software, Albert Place, Finchley.
She was met by company chairman Paul Wright, who was celebrating his birthday.
He introduced her to the winners of a national competition, Young Software Designer of the year, who had used Blyth products to compete.
Mrs Thatcher—who neither owns nor uses a computer herself—presented them both with commemorative certificates, which she had signed, and prizes of new computers.
Adam Boyes, 19, of Streatham, a student at Brighton Polytechnic, who had the Most Innovative Application with his database system for public relations companies, won an Apple Macintosh Personal Computer.
Jeremy Doig, 21, of Newcastle, a student of Newcastle University, described as a sophisticated programmer, won a Tulip 386 SX Personal Computer for having the best presented application.
Mrs Thatcher congratulated the two hopes for the country's computing future and asked them to talk her through their programmes over a cup of tea.
Before she left Blyth Software, the Premier was presented with a bouquet of flowers.
She thanked her hosts for the floral tribute, saying they would make the ideal table decoration for her lunch with Polish leader General Jaruzelski at Chequers the next day.