Margaret Thatcher visiting Walderslade Girls' School in 1987

by Dan Bloom and Nicola Jordan

The former Tory MP for Gillingham said the hard-line image of Margaret Thatcher, who has died aged 87, was "greatly exaggerated by the media."

Jim Couchman, who served from 1983 to 1997, said: "My reaction is obviously sadness. She has been declining in recent years, I last saw her in 2008 at the 25th anniversary of the 1983 intake.

"The most vivid memory I have is when my wife Barbara was taken very ill in 1990. The same evening there was a personal note from her to me, expressing concern and wishing her well. That was quite powerful coming from the Prime Minister.

"I think her image was always exaggerated by the media. I encountered a strong and in many respects a sympathetic character."

Mr Couchman, now 71 and a county councillor in Oxfordshire, said his father Stanley was also friends with Mrs Thatcher's husband Denis after the pair played rugby together.

"The enduring achievement of her government was to widen capitalism," he said. "I suspect very few people who followed her into Downing Street would have taken on the decisions she did."

Mr Couchman, pictured right on a visit to Chatham Dockyard to support his election campaign, added: "In some respects she had quite an old-fashioned view, but then she had lived through the war."

Baroness Thatcher was an icon but also hugely divisive.

Chatham Dockyard closed under her tenure in 1984, decimating the area with the loss of thousands of jobs.

Cllr Julie Shaw (Lab), now 72, said: "I was a councillor and outside the gates on the day it closed.

"There was a lot of sorrow, a lot of reminiscing and a lot of anger. I think it was laid very firmly at Mrs Thatcher and her government."

But Medway Council leader Rodney Chambers (Con), who met Baroness Thatcher in 1987, said: "This country was in one hell of a mess and crying out for strong leadership, and upon her election in 1979 she gave that leadership."

"[The dockyard's closure] just happened to be in the 80s. It could have been later and it certainly could have been earlier."

Former Tory councillor John Spence last saw Baroness Thatcher in August 2008 when she went on a tour of Chatham Historic Dockyard, as the area is now.

He said: "We had lunch at Commissioners House. It was her first visit to the [historic] dockyard and she was greatly impressed."

He added: "She will be remembered as one of the greatest prime ministers this country has ever had.

"Politicians from all parties now accept that decisions she made which were controversial at the time were in fact necessary.

"It should be remembered that the last Labour prime minister Gordon Brown made a point of inviting Lady Thatcher to number 10."

Retired prison officer and former mormer mayor of Medway Cllr Ted Baker (Con) said: "I will remember her for getting the trade unions in control. I was a member of the print union, the National Graphical Association and Prison Officers' Association at the time, even though I have always been a Conservative.

"It was a time when Arthur Scargill was being allowed to get away with murder."

Veteran Medway councillor Tom Mason (Con) first met Baroness Thatcher when she was a young hopeful on the election trail at Rochester's Guildhall.

He said: "I admired her because as a woman she put her head above the parapet among a lot of men who failed to do likewise.

"She was outspoken and had very strong commitments."

Chatham actress Emma Dewhurst played Baroness Thatcher's mother in last year's Oscar-winning biopic The Iron Lady, but said it had not shed any more light for her on the politician's character.

"I think it was an interesting insight into the impact on a family of someone with growing Alzheimer's, but that could have been anybody," she said.

She added: "All respect to her family, as she's died, but nothing will make me change about how I feel about her as a politician."

Speaking of the film, Mr Couchman said: "I hated it. I admired Meryl Streep's performance but I hated the way they concentrated on her declining years. I would've liked to have seen her in her pomp."

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