Falklands War veteran Simon Weston has paid tribute to Margaret Thatcher.
Nelson-born Mr Weston was a Welsh Guardsman during the 1982 conflict and suffered severe burns to his body when the ship the Sir Galahad was destroyed.
Mr Weston told BBC Breakfast: “She had to respond to a threat to British subjects and people who voted to be British then, and have now just recently voted again, to try and tell everybody they have the right for freedom, they have their right to a democratic view, to self determination.
“What they (Argentineans) did in ’82 was reprehensible but she responded in the correct way, she responded decisively and swiftly and we were able to come out slightly better off than the Argentineans.”
He added: “She changed the face of Great Britain, she gave us something to be proud of and I know there’ll be people who will disagree with that, but the fact was wherever she went she was revered, feared and if you didn’t like her you still respected her because of the way she conducted it.”
Mr Weston also praised Baroness Thatcher’s skills as a leader.
“If you think, over the last 20 years we’ve been shepherded and ushered, we’ve not been led and we had a leader then and she was a great leader and the world is going to be a sadder place without her,” he added.
Mr Weston also spoke of Baroness Thatcher’s fight against the National Union of Miners and said she had been proven right.
He added: “People are just people and they needed support and they needed to be reassured and there wasn’t a huge amount of that because both sides were very, very confrontational, and an awful lot of people lost an awful lot during that period of time.
“I even went on one or two of the picket lines – not the aggressive ones – with some of my friends who were miners and it was a sad, sad time to see people losing their livelihoods, but ultimately Mrs Thatcher has been proven right and she will continue to be proven right.”