Iron Lady is back on show
When a politically motivated vandal decapitated the £50,000 statue of Margaret Thatcher, it was feared she would never be the same again.
But after five months of painstaking repair work, the marble Iron Lady has returned without a visible scratch.
With a metal rod in her neck to hold her head on and a specially selected glue made from resin and marble dust to fill the lump that was taken from her lip, she has been returned to her former glory.
She is once more on show to visitors of the Guildhall in the City but, to prevent a repeat attack on our former Prime Minister's image, it is now safely surrounded on all sides by 12mm sheets of laminated glass.
The statue, which was originally supposed to be put on show in the palace of Westminster, will remain at the Guildhall until agreement can be reached over the eight-foot sculpture's permanent home.
Chief restorer Keith Taylor, of Taylor Pearce Restoration Services, said the ?3,500 repair had been a labour of love.
"When we got her she was in a bit of a state, her head came to us in a cardboard box," he said.
"The vandal had knocked her head clean off, she'd bounced on her nose and rolled on the floor so there was quite a lot of damage including a big lump out from under her nose.
"Most of the work was just getting the right match for the colour of the marble so that you cannot see the repair and we are really pleased at how things have turned out.
"Some people think they can see where the crack was but in fact that is a natural crease in the marble. The break can now only be seen if you look really closely with a magnifying glass."
The repair work, which will not discolour over time, took three restorers to complete after 37-year-old Paul Kelleher attacked the statue in July 2002.
The statue had only recently been on public display in the Guildhall when Kelleher, who was later jailed for three months for criminal damage, took a cricket bat from his coat and hit Mrs Thatcher's head.
When this failed to have any result he picked up the metal stand used to hold the barrier rope and hit the head again with dramatic effect.
Kelleher, from Isleworth, claimed at the time he had attacked the statue in protest at the system he claimed Mrs Thatcher represented and said he acted to protect his two-year-old son Alfie from "this mad world".
Lionel Altman, chairman of the Corporation of London's Libraries Guildhall Art Gallery and Archives Committee, said: "We are delighted to have the fully repaired statue back on loan.
"Whatever one's view on Baroness Thatcher's politics she was unquestionably one of the key leaders of 20th century Britain and it is therefore an honour to house this statue."
