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Margaret Tebbit: Ex-minister's wife who survived IRA bomb dies aged 86

BBC Lady Margaret Tebbit and Lord Norman TebbitBBC

Lady Margaret Tebbit, a former nurse and wife of ex-Conservative minister Norman Tebbit, has died, aged 86.

She was paralysed by the IRA's October 1984 bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton, during the Conservative Party conference.

Lady Tebbit is understood to have died at the couple's home in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, in the early hours of Saturday morning.

She had been suffering from Lewy Body Dementia.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson described Lady Tebbit as "a brave woman who showed enormous fortitude in her suffering after the 1984 Brighton bombing".

"My thoughts are with Norman and their family at this difficult time," he added in a Twitter message.

The Irish Republican Army (IRA) was a paramilitary organisation fighting for Northern Ireland to be a part of the Republic of Ireland, rather than the United Kingdom.

The target of the IRA's Brighton bomb was Margaret Thatcher, who was prime minister at the time.

She survived the blast but five people were killed and many more injured, including the then Trade Secretary Lord Tebbit and his wife.

The couple were lying in bed when their ceiling collapsed, leaving Lady Tebbit with spinal injuries.

Grand Hotel
The explosion ripped through several floors of the Grand Hotel in Brighton.

In 1995, Lady Tebbit appeared on Desert Island Discs and spoke about the bombing.

She said: "I don't blame people, I don't completely forget or forgive, but one has to completely look forward."

Lord Tebbit, 89, previously said there was "no possibility of any forgiveness" for the people behind the bombing. He added: "One can hope that there's a particularly hot corner of hell reserved for them and they can repent in their own time there."

The bomb had been planted in the hotel by Patrick Magee. He received eight life sentences but was later released under the Good Friday peace agreement in 1999.

He now regularly appears alongside Jo Berry - a daughter of one of the victims - discussing peace and reconciliation.

Lady Tebbit was born in the Fens in 1934 as one of nine children.

She was training to be a nurse when she met her future husband, then a pilot in the RAF. She described him as "great company - life was never dull".

For 20 years, Lady Tebbit was vice president of the spinal cord injury charity Aspire. The organisation's chief executive Brian Carlin said she would be "deeply missed," describing her as "an incredible ambassador and role model for people with spinal cord injuries".

Chair of the Association of Conservative Peers, Lord Hunt of Wirral, said Lady Tebbit was "a courageous and brave woman," adding "our thoughts are with Norman at this difficult time".