How Kohl’s favourite pig dish turned Mrs T’s stomach

Margaret Thatcher rarely lost her nerve during her years at Number Ten. But Charles Powell, the diplomat who worked as her private secretary in the 1980s, and was a trusted foreign policy advisor, recalls an occasion on which even the Iron Lady got cold feet.

German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, an ardent European and the architect of German reunification, was prepared to go to any lengths to win her friendship - including inviting her to spend a weekend at his home near Ludwigshafen on the Rhine. Kohl was a huge fan of the local speciality Saumagen - stuffed pig's stomach - and insisted on taking her to his favourite tavern to sample the dish.

"Her appetite seemed mysteriously to fade as the German leader went back for seconds and thirds," recalls Lord Powell of Bayswater, writing for the Daily Telegraph. Later, the party visited the crypt of the Romanesque Cathedral of Speyer where Mrs T was invited to inspect the tombs of Holy Roman Emperors, precursors of earlier attempts at European union.

Powell writes: "While she undertook this task without visible enthusiasm, Chancellor Kohl took me behind a pillar and said: 'Now she's seen me here in my home town, right at the heart of Europe and on the border with France, surely she will understand that I am not just German, I am European. You must convince her.'

"I accepted the assignment with trepidation," writes Powell. "As soon as we boarded our aircraft for the return to Britain, Mrs Thatcher threw herself into her seat, kicked off her shoes and announced with the finality which was her trademark: 'My God, that man is so German.' Gutless, I aborted my mission to persuade her otherwise."