Mark Thatcher surprised

Press, 16 January 1982, Page 4

Mark Thatcher surprised

NZPA Tamanrasset. Algeria Mark Thatcher, son of the British Prime Minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher, arrived at Tamanrasset, Algeria, by plane with two companions after they were picked up by a desert rescue team six days after dropping out of the Paris-Dakar motor rally. After a reunion with his father, Denis Thatcher, who had waited anxiously in the small southern Algerian town for news of his son's fate. Mark Thatcher aged 28, shrugged off his six-day desert ordeal and was

surprised to learn of the worldwide attention' he and his companions had attracted. Looking fit but unkempt, with the beginnings of a beard and wearing scruffy jeans and a T-shirt, he told reporters at a news conference at the Tahat Hotel: "All I need is a beer and a sandwich, a bath and a shave." Surveying the journalists, he commented: “I am absolutely staggered. I have seen fewer journalists at a Conservative Party conference."

His French co-driver. Anny-Charlotle Verney, who looked fit but was shaky, was taken to a hospital, but doctors said she was suffering merely from air sickness after the 400 km flight from the town of Timeiaouine. Also rescued with them was their mechanic. Claude Garnier. All three were in good health when a rescue team picked them up in the sparsely populated Sahara region of southern Algeria. An Algerian Air Force pilot had spotted them and their Peugeot 504 rally car and Algerian border guards

took them to Timeiauouine. just on the Algerian side of the border with Mali. Mark Thatcher told the news conference that the trouble started when the rear axle of the Peugeot broke. They settled down to wait for help, pitching their tent beside the car. "On the second day we saw the plane belonging to the rallv organisers, but unluckily it was heading into the sun and did not see us," he said. "We were not lost. We knew where we were, although we weren't where we were supposed to be."