Thatcher's sister and 'best friend' dies

[emad]

By David Twiston Davies and Sally Pook
(Filed: 04/12/2004)

Muriel Cullen, the sister of Lady Thatcher, has died aged 83 after a long illness, her family said yesterday.

The older of the two sisters by four years, she helped her husband over more than two decades to build up a 900-acre farm outside Harwich, Essex, and demonstrated no desire for a place in the public eye.


The Roberts family: Muriel , Alfred, Beatrice and Margaret

A reluctant interviewee, she once told a reporter who had been waiting for her to return from a round of golf: "Didn't anyone tell you I was the short, dumpy one?"

"She was a wonderful mother and sister," her son, Andrew, said yesterday. "She was very close to her sister. They used to meet on a regular basis before Margaret became Conservative leader.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/12/04/nthatch04.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/12/04/ixhome.html

[Benhurst]

1. Too bad she couldn't hold on a bit longer to see her nephew

sent to prison for life.