MARGARET Thatcher personally intervened in a bid to save almost 2000 jobs at the Timex factory in Dundee on the eve of the 1983 General Election, previously secret papers show.

The Conservative Prime Minister wrote to the owner of the company, Fred Olsen, to assure Timex of her government's full support in its steps to secure work and jobs in the city.

The threatened ­redundancies came as Timex announced it was phasing out the manufacture of traditional mechanical watches in Dundee.

However, unions claimed the company wanted to move to the Fralsen company at Besancon in France because of the large subsidies which were offered by the French government.

Workers staged a sit-in at the Dundee plant, refusing to leave until owners acceded to their demands.

The row came at a difficult time for Mrs Thatcher as she attempted to win re-election for the first time.

She was under immense pressure over the economy, not least because unemployment had inched above three million on her watch.

Previously secret Number 10 papers reveal that Downing Street received a reply from Timex after Mrs Thatcher's intervention.

In it the firm said it was willing to consider locating not just new products at the Dundee factory but research and development work. However, hopes of a ­positive resolution were not met.

The papers record that by May 13 management and union representatives agreed a compromise that ended a sit-in of the factory.

In the end, however, unions were forced to accept a total of 2200 job losses, more than the 1900 that had originally been planned.

The writing was on the wall for the firm's presence in Dundee, where in the 1970s it had employed 5000.

Another strike at the Timex factory in Dundee in 1993 attracted violence on the picket line and the site itself closed for good later that year, after 47 years in the city.