25,000 pages posted online show Tory leader followed crash diet before election, genesis of 'no such thing as society' and how Denis missed dinner with his chums

Her fondness for whisky is well known, as is her ability to get by on as little as four hours sleep a night. But an even more unusual aspect of Margaret Thatcher's lifestyle is revealed today: the Tory leader steeled herself for the 1979 general election with a crash diet that featured no fewer than 28 eggs a week.

The two-week high-protein diet included one day - Thursdays - on which eggs were on the menu for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

The only respite she was allowed in this grapefruit and black coffee, steak and lettuce diet was a glass of whisky "when meat is eaten". Otherwise it was "no alcohol".

The impact of such a diet on her temperament, especially when combined with her famed lack of sleep, can only be guessed at. But the ticks she made against each ingredient on her personal diet sheet seems to indicate that she followed the Mayo Clinic regime – well-known for rapid weight loss – rigorously.

The diet plan was tucked into the cover flap of her 1979 Economist pocket diary which is among her personal papers released today.

The 1979 files from Thatcher's Downing Street political and press offices also reveal that even before she recited the St Francis of Assisi prayer on the steps of No 10 she was telling an American management consultant: "I shall have to take most of the major decisions myself."

They confirm that she regarded her first cabinet as a well-balanced government that included some "fervent believers in the almost pure political belief". They were "balanced out" with others "not for me, but to give a certain confidence that one is determined to take the middle ground," she told the newly elected Canadian prime minister, Joe Clark.

The papers also show that her 1987 "no such thing as society" remark, which for many critics defined the immoral truth of Thatcherism, was not off the cuff but was her view as early as 1979.

In a two-page personal credo for inclusion but never used in her October 1979 conference speech, Thoughts on the Moral Case, she echoes the sentiment: "Morality is personal. There is no such thing as collective conscience, collective kindness, collective gentleness, collective freedom. To talk of social justice, social responsibility, a new world order, may be easy and make us feel good, but it does not absolve each of us from personal responsibility."

This passage goes further when she looks forward to the creation of what she calls the New Patriotism. She writes: "When we have succeeded with a nation of people who take personal responsibility then we shall have, and be entitled to have, The New Patriotism."

This appears to have been too strong a sentiment even for her speechwriters and did not make it into the speech.

The 25,000 pages of her personal papers and those of her press secretary, Bernard Ingham, and policy adviser, Sir John Hoskyns, are being put online today by the Margaret Thatcher Foundation in one of the most ambitious projects of its kind.

Given the later civil war between Sir Alan Walters, her economics adviser, and Nigel Lawson, it is interesting to find that she initially wanted to establish a Gordon Brown-style Council of Economic Advisers, but this came to nothing in the face of Treasury hostility.

She tried to set up a small army of "irregular advisers" but told the US management consultant Alcon Copisarow in 1977: "It is most important that we get the structure and strategy right and I have already come to the conclusion that I shall have to take most of the major decisions myself. It is therefore vital that I also arrange to keep in touch with a number of key figures in the 'outside' world."

Michael Heseltine caused Thatcher trouble from the off. Her handwritten notes for the first cabinet confirm that she wanted to put him in the energy department, but he objected at the last moment and swapped jobs with David Howell at environment.

Letters of congratulation poured in from unexpected sources. It is a surprise to see Peter Sellers and Eric Morecambe alongside the Daily Mail's David English and the Sun's Larry Lamb. Harvey Thomas, who cultivated celebrities on her behalf, particulary asked for thank you letters to be sent to BBC figures including DJ Pete Murray and sports commentators Peter Lorenzo and Ron Pickering – all "staunch Conservatives" – for their help in opening doors to the likes of Bobby Moore, Barbara Windsor and Petula Clark.

But one figure refused to get too excited about it all. Denis Thatcher did not always find attending his wife's engagements too much of a joy. "Another dreaded State Banquet I'm afraid," the Diary Secretary informed him. "1. J. C. What I do for the Party! I have entered and will show up. 2. The same evening I was going to attend probably the best Rugby Football Dinner this year, namely the Centenary Dinner of the Middlesex RFU. All me chums will be there! D."

See the papers at: margaretthatcher.org