Margaret Thatcher, the grocer's daughter from Grantham who rose to become one of Britain's most controversial prime ministers, lived in Colchester for two years after leaving Oxford.
As Margaret Roberts, she lodged in Cambridge Road, and commuted daily to her job as a £400-a-year research chemist at the British Xylonite Company at Cattawade, near Manningtree .
Colchester people remember her catching the 8am Beeston's works bus from the bus depot in St John's Street. This was in marked contrast to the huge security operation surrounding her visit to the town as part of the 1992 election campaign.
While in Colchester in the late 1940s, she joined the town's Conservative Association and worked diligently for the cause, manning book stalls at fetes and attending social events. She eventually became association secretary.
Lady Thatcher's biographer, Kenneth Harris, said: "She discussed politics in the canteen and tried to proselytise her fellow employees travelling to and from work.
"She was regarded with a mixture of amusement and respect. Some of her colleagues thought her a bit boring at times - but nobody disliked her and took to her because she was 'friendly and nice'."
At the 1948 Conservative conference in Llandudno, Wales, she was persuaded to fight the safe Labour seat at Dartford, Kent. She was just 24 and the only woman shortlisted. When she was selected she was the youngest Tory candidate in the country and shaved 1,000 votes off the Labour majority.
She left Colchester to nurse Dartford for another attempt at the seat, taking a job with the J.Lyons food company. She later went on to capture Finchley for the Tories, a seat she held until her retirement.
Lady Thatcher's elder sister Muriel Cullen farms at Great Oakley near Harwich and Lady Thatcher used a visit to the farm as a sounding board to find out about farm policies shortly after becoming Conservative leader in 1975. She also went shopping with Mrs Cullen, buying five pairs of shoes from a shop on the exclusive Connaught Avenue in Frinton.
Lady Thatcher clearly remembers her time in Colchester. Her landlady was Enid Macaulay, president of Colchester soroptomists. She repaid her friendship by addressing a meeting of the soroptomists in 1976.