MARGARET Thatcher took time to cancel a hair appointment amid the chaos caused by the Brighton bombing, documents have revealed.

The Iron Lady was calm under pressure in the wake of the attack at The Grand Hotel on Friday, October 12, 1984, research has suggested.

A bomb was planted in the hotel by Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) member Patrick Magee in an attempt to kill Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet, who were staying there during the Conservative Party Conference at the neighbouring Brighton Centre.

The then prime minister narrowly escaped injury but five people were killed, including two high-profile members of the Conservative Party, while 31 were injured.

Despite this, she swiftly decided the conference would go ahead and wrote to the owners of Ruffles hairdressers in Hove to personally apologise for not being able to attend a slot arranged for that morning.

The files reveal that a secretary had already called to cancel the appointment but not content, Mrs Thatcher addressed the letter to William and Carol Thorne and thanked Mr Thorne for his work earlier that week.

She said: “I was very pleased with the way you did my hair, and the fact that it lasted so well through Friday was the real test.”

The revelation has been uncovered in Baroness Thatcher’s private files for 1984, which have been opened to the public today by the Margaret Thatcher Archive Trust at the Churchill Archive Centre in Cambridge.

A list of leaders who wrote to her expressing their condolences after the tragedy and another of letters sent to staff and their families are also included in the documents.

Secretaries were retyping and photocopying the speech Mrs Thatcher was due to give when the bomb hit in the early hours of the morning.

They took a final version of the text as they were evacuated and used an ancient copy machine at Lewes Police College to finish their work.

The team drove at speed back to the city where a room of the Brighton Centre was commandeered as an office for the finishing touches, the files show.

Historian Chris Collins, of the Margaret Thatcher Foundation, said: “Her reaction was partly out of necessity and her instinct to carry on.

“I think she would have also been comforted by returning to her usual schedule.

“But also it was a natural human reaction.”

For more information on the private files, visit margaretthatcher.org.