IT was ideological love at first sight for Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, who made the most unlikely but dominant international pairing of the late 20th century, triumphing side by side in the Cold War.

Mrs Thatcher defied illness to attend Mr Reagan's funeral in Washington in 2004 and for her inscription in a book of condolences chose "Well done thou good and faithful servant", a quotation reflecting the Christian faith they shared but also the tough capitalist principles they embraced.

It was not always smooth sailing between Thatcher and Mr Reagan, whose countries traditionally enjoyed what has been dubbed a "special relationship".

Washington was initially reluctant to help Mrs Thatcher's 1982 military excursion to eject Argentina's forces from the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic, and Britain was angered by Mr Reagan's decision to invade the Commonwealth island of Grenada after a military coup a year later.

The people of Moscow, especially during the Cold War, adored her, but Soviet leaders treated her warily.

Shortly after she swept to power in 1979, Leonid Brezhnev scoffed in the Kremlin: "She is trying to wear the trousers of Winston Churchill." He soon learned to treat her with less disdain.

However, her Kremlin favourite was Mikhail Gorbachev, the man she famously could do business with. Unlike his grim predecessors, Mr Gorbachev would debate intelligently and their meetings were once summed up as: "Like an English summer's day – thunderstorms and sunny periods."

Sir Bernard Ingham, her press secretary, said the chemistry between them was "quite extraordinary". Mr Gorbachev's wife, Raisa, even appeared to some observers to be jealous.

The Soviet press treated her less kindly. Headlines such as The Cold War Warrior and The Wicked Witch of the West screamed across their front pages.

But it was Red Star, the Soviet Army newspaper, that did her the biggest favour, although unintentionally, describing her as The Iron Lady.

Later she was to say: "The Russians said I was an Iron Lady. They were right. Britain needs an Iron Lady."

It was perhaps in Europe she left the biggest impression. Her critics to this day accuse her of handbag diplomacy, foghorn diplomacy and high-octane diplomacy. But her table-thumping and shouting had its effect.

French president, Giscard d'Estaing, liked her at first, but grew colder because she invariably got the better of him.

Helmut Schmidt, the West German chancellor, described her as "no soft touch" – a con-siderable understatement.

A different German chancellor, Helmut Kohl, found her altogether overwhelming. Once when they were together in Germany, Mr Kohl pleaded another urgent engagement and made good his escape. A short while later, Mrs Thatcher reportedly spotted him scoffing cream cakes in a nearby cafe.

Of all the tussles between Mrs Thatcher and Brussels during her premiership, the one most readily recalled was summed up in five words: "I want my money back."

What the prime minister actually told her fellow leaders in a four-year campaign which began within months of arriving in Downing Street was "we are simply asking to have our own money back".

She made it look simple too – winning a substantial discount on what she said were unfairly large British contributions to the European Union budget. The fact the "rebate" still exists today and has saved the Treasury billions of pounds a year for nearly 30 years is probably her most tangible legacy of 11 years of engagement with what she increasingly saw as a federalist menace.

But she had fervently backed EU membership in the 1975 UK referendum, declaring in a campaign speech: "It is a myth the community (EU) is simply a bureaucracy with no concern for the individual. The entire staff of the commission is about 7000 – smaller than that of the Scottish Office. It is a myth our membership of the community will suffocate national tradition and culture."