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Former British Leader Has Dementia, Daughter Says

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The New York Times

Published: August 26, 2008

LONDON - Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher has been suffering from dementia for at least the past eight years and has often had to be reminded that her husband is dead, according to her daughter, Carol.

It is common knowledge that Thatcher, 82, has been fragile since suffering a series of small strokes in 2002 and since the death of her husband, Denis, in 2003.

She gave up public speaking several years ago, on the advice of her doctor and makes far fewer appearances than she once did.

But while people in Thatcher's circle have long known that her mind is not what it once was, they have not spoken publicly about it until now.

Details of Thatcher's condition are recounted by her daughter in a new memoir, "A Swim-On Part in the Goldfish Bowl," an excerpt of which appeared in The Mail.

Carol Thatcher, 55, said that it was during a lunch at a London hotel in 2000 when she realized her mother was mentally slipping. They began discussing the Bosnian conflict of the 1990s when, to Carol Thatcher's dismay, it became clear her mother was confusing that crisis with the Falklands war of the 1980s.

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