New files from 1984

Contemporary records specialists Mark Dunton and Simon Demissie discuss the latest batch of government records to be released to The National Archives. The year was 1984 and Margaret Thatcher's appointment diary, included in this collection for the first time, shows she was as busy as ever. The year-long miners' strike dominated the headlines and occupied much of the Cabinet's time but it was also the year WPC Yvonne Fletcher was shot outside the Libyan People's Bureau and Mrs Thatcher herself narrowly escaped death in the Brighton hotel bombing. The new files also provide a fascinating insight into the first meeting between Mrs Thatcher and future Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.