The idea that somebody would have the audacity to open a cafe in Liverpool named after British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher seems almost beyond comprehension.
It's enough to make you spit your tea out in disbelief – but it's true. A tea and coffee shop called 'Thatcher's' was opened by a Tory MP on Allerton Road.
The cafe was the brainchild of Anthony Steen, who became Conservative MP for Wavertree in 1974.
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The cafe was opened in 1978 and a photograph found in the Mirrorpix archives dated June 9, 1985 shows two women enjoying a cuppa with a photo of The Iron Lady on the wall behind them.
The original caption of the photograph reads: "Daphne Abels and Sheila Davies celebrate with a cup of tea at Thatcher's Tea Shop in Allerton Road, Allerton.
"The shop has just been awarded the good tea symbol in the prestigious Egon Ronay Just A Bite guide for serving a quality cuppa. 9th June 1985."
In 1978, the Liverpool ECHO ran a story on the cafe with an accompanying photograph of the MP owner posing with a towel draped across his arm, waiting on customers.
A quote from the story read: "Wavertree MP Anthony Steen tried his hand as a waiter today – all for the Conservative cause. Mr Steen flew up from London to serve at his brainchild coffee shop, Thatcher's, in Allerton Road, Allerton – 'the best example of an entrepreneurial operation.'
"Business has been brisk at the gentile coffee shop since the Tory leader herself opened it last Friday.
"Allerton residents have been keen to sip Java coffee and eat home-made cakes in front of a huge photograph of Mrs. Thatcher and surrounded by the illustrious names of former Prime Ministers."
Another article in the ECHO later that same year mentions that Mr Steen had recently had his garden gnomes pinched from outside his house.
In 1980, the ECHO revealed more of the MP's unconventional ways when it was reported that Mr Steen would cycle to 10 Downing Street every week with a fruit cake for the then Prime Minister, which had been baked by the women volunteers who worked at Thatcher's tea shop.
However, the shop wasn't popular with everyone and there are accounts that during the Toxteth Riots in July 1981, some rioters had journeyed out of Toxteth to smash all the windows of the tea room on Allerton Road.
Does Thatcher's on Allerton Road awaken any memories for you? Let us know in the comments section below.
Another account of the times reports that the shop became the focus for Labour Party Young Socialists' demonstrations in the early 1980s.
It's said that while customers would be eating cake and sipping tea inside, activists wearing rubber Margaret Thatcher masks would gawp and jeer through the windows.
So it may come as a surprise that Liverpool would not only have a Conservative MP, but also a cafe named after somebody so unpopular in the city, to say the least.
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