A greengrocer’s daughter who was the first – and so far only – female chairman of Shipley Constituency Conservative Association has spoken of her career in local politics as Margaret Thatcher took centre stage nationally.

Nancy White, 88, stood firm in the early 1980s when she announced she wanted to chair the group.

“The treasurer was very upset that I was going for it as a woman,” she said. “He said ‘But I want it’. So I said ‘Well, I’ll fight you for it’.

“‘Bloody hell’, he said. ‘You’ll win.’ “So three times I stood, and three times I became chair. I was determined.

“I’m not a woman’s libber, but I believe in women getting there under their own steam. I thought the women were so active in the constituency and it was right that I represent them as a constituency chairman.

“Some of the men didn’t like it, but I just said ‘tough’.

Mrs White, who was nominated for an OBE in 1987 by Baroness Thatcher, said the Prime Minister was “just a normal sort of person”.

“I think Margaret Thatcher wasn’t a typical women’s lib person either,” Mrs White said. “I think it was our upbringing that helped us to be the people that we became.”

Mrs White was previously chairman of Shipley Constituency Conservative Women’s Association. As part of that role she was vice-chairman for the Yorkshire women’s group when she met Lady Thatcher for the first time in the 1970s at Downing Street.

The grandmother also met the Prime Minister in 1975 at a garden party in Bingley.

“She said that they’d had burglars and they’d stolen most of her silver, so we decided that we’d present her with a small silver dish and as chair of the women’s group I had the honour of presenting it and made a speech,” Mrs White said.

In 1983 Mrs White, of Staybrite Avenue, Cottingley was asked to help organise a private lunch for Conservative Party workers with Lady Thatcher at Bingley Arts Centre. At that time Mrs White was chairman of the Shipley Conservative group, representing both men and women.

The Prime Minster, also a greengrocer’s daughter, was presented with a painting of Bingley Parish Church by local artist James Hardaker and had a meal including hand-pressed ox tongue and double chocolate meringue.

Mrs White, who is originally from Pickering, was at the Grand Hotel in Brighton in October 1984 the night an IRA bomb went off. She had left the conference 30 minutes before the explosion.

“The next morning I spent most of the morning consoling those who had been there,” she said.

“I was serving them coffees. But everything went on, just as she wanted it.”