SHE declared it the best conference venue she had been to, but Margaret Thatcher fell for Bournemouth in more ways than one.

The former prime minister’s private papers recall how she tripped over a manhole ahead of a Conservative Party conference.

The Iron Lady came to the town twice as prime minister and in 1986, the Daily Echo revealed she said it was the best conference venue she had been to.

But days earlier, she had written to the mayor, Cllr Dan Crone, to apologise for pulling out of a civic ball on October 7.

The letter is part of private papers newly released 30 years later.

Mrs Thatcher’s fall, which happened at the Pier Approach, was noted by the Daily Echo at the time.

She wrote to the mayor: “I am so sorry not to be with you this evening. As you may have heard I tripped over one of Bournemouth’s manholes this afternoon and my ankle didn’t like it very much.

“Neither did the manhole!”

She praised the mayor for giving a “marvellous speech” earlier in the day which “got the conference off to a really good start”, signing off: “Every good wish, yours sincerely, Margaret Thatcher.”

The conference – the Conservatives’ first at the recently-built BIC – saw Mrs Thatcher receive a seven-minute standing ovation.

In her keynote speech, she pledged to sell off even more council homes and privatise more publicly owned industries.

“Let’s go for the second million council houses sold,” she said.

“What’s more, millions have become shareholders and soon there will be opportunities for millions more.”

She attacked Labour, the trade unions and an education system “infiltrated by a permissive philosophy of self-expression”.

During her time in the resort, Mrs Thatcher visited Castle Lane to tour the new Royal Bournemouth Hospital.

The conference was credited with putting the Tories back in the lead in the opinion polls, ready for a big election win in 1987.

Mrs Thatcher would visit Bournemouth once more as prime minister – in 1990, when photo opportunities saw her riding the land train and opening the Purbeck Hall at the BIC.

But the next month, a devastating resignation speech by deputy prime minister Sir Geoffrey Howe led to a leadership contest which ended her time in Downing Street.