Thatcher once wanted to join ICS

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Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once wanted to join the erstwhile Indian Civil Service, newly released papers by an organisation dedicated to promoting her vision revealed.

The woman, whom the world knows as the Iron Lady, told interviewer Miriam Stoppard in 1985, of her secret ambition, on Yorkshire Television's Woman to Woman programme, the Margaret Thatcher Foundation's papers said

Speaking to Dr Stoppard at 10, Downing Street, Mrs Thatcher, spoke of her early life, saying, "I told you all the missionaries and people used to come from India. I had an ambition as a child. I wanted to be part of the Indian Civil Service, because our Civil Service was the best in the world." "Now, we were brought up that Britain was the best in the world because she had standards of honesty and integrity and law.

The best in the world, the Indian Civil Service was part of our Civil Service and it was the best in the world and it was to do things for the Indians and it was to help them," the papers quoted her as saying.

She said she told her father,"If I manage to get to university, I think I'd like to go in the Indian Civil Service, because I will be able to do something for them!" "I remember my father saying this was before the War. I do not think there will be one by the time you are grown up," she added.

She told Dr Stoppard that her father's words were prophetic.