This Article is From Oct 13, 2014

British Hotel Remembers Bomb Attack on Margaret Thatcher

British Hotel Remembers Bomb Attack on Margaret Thatcher

File photo of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher.

London: A Brighton hotel held a minute's silence Sunday to mark the 30th anniversary of a deadly paramilitary bomb attack intended to assassinate British prime minister Margaret Thatcher.

The 1984 terror attack hit the Grand Hotel in Brighton on the southeast English coast while Thatcher and members of her cabinet were staying there during the Conservative Party's annual conference.

Planted by the Irish Republican Army, the blast ripped through the hotel, killing five people and seriously injuring 34 others.

The Grand Hotel's flag flew at half-mast as 60 staff gathered in the lobby along with members of the public for a minute's silence to remember those killed and wounded.

"I said a few words to pause and reflect and remember the five people who were killed and 34 injured, the guests at the hotel, members of the community, the emergency services and so many other people who were affected by what happened that night," said the Grand's general manager Andrew Mosley.

"The message we want to send above all else is that we have not forgotten what happened here 30 years ago."

The time bomb went off at 2:54 am and the mid-section of the hotel collapsed into the basement, leaving a huge hole in the building's facade. Thatcher was still awake at the time working on her speech for the next day.

Thatcher insisted the conference went ahead as planned. In a newly-written speech, she told delegates that by their presence they were showing that "all attempts to destroy democracy by terrorism will fail".

Cabinet minister Norman Tebbit was wounded and his wife left paralysed. Lawmaker Anthony Berry was among those killed.

Tebbit said Sunday he still could not forgive "the creature" Patrick Magee, who planted the bomb, saying his wife had still not had justice because Magee has never named the others behind the attack.

Magee was to take part in a panel discussion in Brighton on Sunday night following a documentary on Berry's daughter Jo and her reconciliatory journey with the bomber.

Jailed in 1986, Magee was released decades early in 1999 under the terms of the Northern Irish peace accords.

"When he planted the bomb he wasn't seeing human beings. It was a strategy and now he sees human beings," said Berry.

"It has been about him getting his humanity back. That has changed him, definitely.

"He regards me as a friend," she added.
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