The year was 1982. Prime minister Margaret Thatcher rerouted an RAF Hercules over foreign territory and requested the scrambling of jets and choppers and ground troops. The diplomatic cables burned back and forth. President Ronald Reagan expressed concern. The situation was desperate. This wasn’t the Falklands War – that came a few months later. This, in fact, may have been more emotional for the Iron Lady. Her only son, 29-year-old Mark, had gone missing.
A privileged and rather bored young man who’d failed his accountancy exams three times, Mark Thatcher was searching for some meaning in life and caught the motor racing bug. He’d competed in the Le Mans 24 Hours, and it was with extemporaneousness and a side order of hubris that he took on the very different and more dangerous challenge of the Paris-Dakar with little more than bravado and a rudimentary compass.
The rally was very much in its infancy.
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