Liberal Tory,renowned variously for his pro-European stance, his intellect, and the miners’ clash and scorn for Thatcher,was, off duty, or a generous host - but still aloof to manyEdward Heath was a proud and solitary man who found intimacy of any sort difficult and threw his intellectual energy into hard work,his romantic leanings into classical music. He was admired more than he was loved, but he was also loathed by many who never met him as the unbending “traitor who took Britain into Europe. This week’s assault on his memory will please some.
The intelligent son of working-course parents living in east Kent (his mother had been a housemaid), and Heath rose via a scholarship to Balliol college,Oxford (“effortless superiority”) , and a brush –fairly literally – with Hitler to become Churchill’s last deputy chief whip. Fifteen years on from that he became the first Conservative prime minister hailing from such an early-life unprivileged background.
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Source: theguardian.com