Sir Denis Thatcher was the perfect consort for a prime minister - ever loyal but always in the background. Nick Morrison looks at the man behind the image.

HE was permanently sozzled, a gin-swilling chauvinist whose opinions had much more to do with the 19th century than the 20th and, whatever he was doing, he would much rather be playing golf. Some of that may not have been true, but for Denis Thatcher it didn't matter - you feel it rather suited him to have the image of a boozy buffer.

For more than 50 years, Sir Denis stood at his wife's side or, to be more accurate, a few paces behind, as she blazed her way into history. But while for much of their marriage he may have been very much in his wife's shadow, he never complained, was never heard to express the slightest note of jealousy, and never balked at the role that had been thrust upon him.

As the first husband of a prime minister, he accepted the indignities and ridicule with stoical good humour. As the consort of a politician who inspired unusually strong feelings among followers and opponents alike, he was fiercely protective. As the partner of a woman who could be a little domineering, he was ever resilient.

But he was much more than this. In many ways, he was the rock upon which his wife built her political career. She described him as the "golden thread", the man "who has made everything possible". Without his unswerving support, she may never have reached the heights of Number Ten, and his refusal to ever give interviews cemented his determination to only be a help, and never a hindrance, to her career.

And he was never backward in doing his duty. Whether it involved donning a precarious turban in Delhi, sitting through an interminably long speech by Malawi president Dr Hastings Banda, or stopping the Australian crowds from getting too close, he played the role to perfection, rarely putting a foot wrong.

Denis Thatcher was born in south London in May 1915, the son of a farming family who expanded into making sheep dip, then chemicals and paint. He studied industrial administration and cost accounting, married Margaret Kempson in 1942, and spent the war as an artillery major, being mentioned in despatches for service in France, Italy and Sicily.

When he returned from the war he divorced his wife and became managing director of the family firm, Atlas Preservatives, on the death of his father. As a prominent Dartford Conservative, he met the young Margaret Hilda Roberts when she put herself up for selection as Tory candidate for the Kent town.

"What caught my eye," he said, 25 years later, "was the same qualities as now. She was beautiful, gay, very kind and thoughtful. Who could meet Margaret without being completely slain by her personality and intellectual brilliance?"

They married in December 1951, and over the following eight years Dennis saw his wife qualify as a barrister and become an MP, as well as give birth to twins, Carol and Mark.

Denis sold Atlas for £560,000 in 1965, after something of a mid-life crisis when he took himself off to South Africa. But what could have been the end of his business life proved a springboard to a new career, as he was offered a place on the Castrol board.

While this brought a new-found wealth, and financial security, it was not until the mid 1970s, when he was approaching retirement, that his wife's career began to really take off, as she was first Minister of Education and then Tory leader, after beating the incumbent Edward Heath.

Victory in the 1979 General Election propelled him into Downing Street, but determinedly playing second fiddle to his wife, or "The Boss", as he called her, perfecting the knack of keeping out of her way, then suddenly appearing when she needed him. When she hesitated in the middle of a walkabout, it was his voice that was heard to announce, "Right wheel, dear".

In public he kept his opinions to himself, but he was thought to have been instrumental in at least three Cabinet sackings, insisting his wife get rid of those who were not loyal. Unlike his wife, he was also a shrewd judge of character, and was not taken in by charm and the obsequious lackeys. "Loyalty, to me, is the one quality all men must have," he once said.

But while he may have been credited with being considerably to the right of his wife - and his rugby club dinner speeches were an affront to the politically correct - he maintained a dignified silence in public, once saying: "So long as I keep the lowest possible profile and neither write nor say anything, I avoid getting into trouble."

Although he never gave interviews, he was at home with Fleet Street hacks, revelling in their bibulous company, although insisting that any questions should be "put to the GOC (General Officer Commanding)".

The ups and downs of office were taken in his stride, and even the Brighton bomb, when the IRA tried to kill his wife and most of her Cabinet, didn't phase him, his only comment being: "You should have seen our bathroom. It looks as if it's been through a wringer".

But as the seemingly-silent partner in his marriage, he almost invited caricature, most famously in the Dear Bill letters in Private Eye, presenting a portrait of an ageing Hooray Henry, with affairs of state coming a poor second to his twin loves of gin and golf. It was an image he was not keen to dispel - when Willie Rushton asked how he spent his time, he replied: "When I'm not paralytic, I like playing golf".

He made no secret of the fact that it was a lonely life in the Downing Street flat and he yearned for retirement. And when the time came to bow out of politics, it was his voice which proved decisive. As the prime minister contemplated taking part in the second ballot for the leadership, he told her "Darling, I don't want you to be humiliated", and she bowed out.

When he finally swapped Number Ten for retirement in Belgravia, he was made a hereditary baronet, Sir Denis Thatcher of Scotney Castle in Kent, a title which now passes to his son Mark. At a farewell party at Downing Street he told staff: "I hope you will remember me as never having been discourteous to anyone. That's what I'd like to be remembered for."

He may have been the husband, a man destined to be overshadowed by his wife, but he never lost his dignity, or his ability to laugh at himself. Once, as he gossiped with reporters during a flight, one plucked up the courage to ask: "Mr Thatcher, who really wears the trousers in your house?" After a suitable pause, and perhaps a slug of gin, Sir Denis replied: "I do. I wear the trousers. And I wash and iron them, too."