Hastings remained a friend of Thatcher after his retirement from the Commons in 1983. He and his wife entertained the Thatchers and other notables at Milton Hall, the largest private house in Cambridgeshire. In 1982 Margaret and Denis Thatcher were at dinner with the Hastings at Milton when the butler entered to ask the Prime Minister to the telephone, by which Mrs Thatcher was informed of Argentina's invasion of the British South Atlantic island of South Georgia. This marked the start of the Falklands War.