Gordon Brown: Prime Minister. Tom Bower

there was nothing wrong with me except that I couldn’t see.’ Irritated by medicine’s limitations, his infirmity became a blow to his self-confidence, compounding the insecurity which would bedevil his life and inspire reconsideration of his faith. In a later interview, Brown mentioned his trepidation about the predestination preached by Calvinists. ‘The idea that it doesn’t matter what you do, that you could be predetermined for damnation’ was unappealing, he explained. He disliked the concept of ‘no credit for human endeavour since all decisions are made by God. It’s a very black religion in that sense.’ By contrast, his teetotal father’s practice of good works and charity was infinitely preferable; but doubts had also arisen about that. The Presbyterian ethic – that the afterlife was not so attractive – was also unappealing. Rather than embracing religion as support for his torment, his certainty about God and the scriptures had weakened. Neither in public nor in private would he ever express thanks to God or refer to Christianity as an influence, guide or support for his life.

      He rejected the paraphrase of a poem often recited by John Brown at the sickbed:

      He gives the conquest to the weak,

      Supports the fainting heart,

      And courage in the evil hour

      His heavenly aids impart.

      Rather, he was influenced by a pertinent sermon of his father’s summarising the lesson of anguish and salvation: ‘Blindness is surely one of life’s sorest handicaps … For them vistas of loveliness are shut off and bring no joy and gladness.’ John Brown’s sympathy for the blind switched to rhetorical criticism of the sighted: ‘Is it not the case that many of us – yes, most of us – even though we have our seeing faculties, walk blindly through life? We notice so little when we could see so much, passing by the wonders of creation without giving them a thought … Perhaps more people suffer from blindness than we realise … Through an over-concentration on trivialities, they have lost sight of the things that really matter.’

      Any trace of his son’s dilettantism was expunged. After six months in hospital, there was relief that one eye was saved. The left, dead eye permanently changed Brown’s appearance. His smile no longer triggered the normal facial muscles, gradually creating a slightly dour expression. At the time he spoke of the operation as a success, but he would tell a friend years later, ‘The operation was botched. Everyone can make mistakes.’ He particularly recalled the surgeon’s quip, ‘Well Gordon, we’ll have another bash.’

      In spring 1968 he courageously resumed his studies and re-engaged in university life. The seventeen-year-old self-consciously hid any suggestion of impairment and the psychological consequences of six months’ darkness. Compared to the shy fresher introduced by his brother to Jonathan Wills as a potential contributor to the student newspaper, Brown now displayed more self-confidence than previously. Propelled by a single-minded lust for success, in one way he resembled Willy Loman in Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman: ‘He had the only dream you can have – to come out number-one man.’ In effect, Brown sought control over others. Within weeks, most students at the university were conscious of an exceptional undergraduate in their midst.

      The contrast between the outstanding student diligently pursuing his degree and the near squalor of his first home in the Grassmarket, just behind Edinburgh Castle, and later his second, larger home in Marchmont Road, entered the university’s folklore. At first the rooms at 48 Marchmont Road were shared with six or seven other students as a statutory tenant, but after fifteen years he would buy them for a bargain price. With some pride Brown would confirm his chronic untidiness, retelling a story of a policeman reporting a burglary at his flat. ‘I have never seen such mindless vandalism in thirty years in the force,’ said the police officer of the chaos. Brown surveyed the scene. ‘It looks quite normal to me,’ he replied. Those sharing his flat tolerated not only the anarchy but also one unusual tenant who one afternoon caught a burglar entering through the skylight. Instead of calling the police she invited the intruder to stay, for an affair lasting several weeks. Her room was subsequently occupied by Andrew, Gordon’s younger brother, a keen party host. Those who ever voiced a suspicion that Andrew was riding on his elder brother’s achievements were promptly cautioned. ‘Please don’t hurt me by criticising Andrew,’ Brown once told Owen Dudley Edwards, his university tutor. ‘Criticise me, but not Andrew.’

      Politics was his passion, and his political stance was set in concrete. He joined the Labour Party in 1969, and while growing his hair long, ignored the fashionable far left, refusing to join the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) or to join the movement for greater Scottish independence following the discovery of oil in the North Sea. He was never seen smoking pot or uncontrollably drunk, even as the host of his frequent parties. The dozens who regularly crowded into the flat to drink beer and eat dry cubes of cheese at the end of toothpicks, influenced by the turbulence in England during the sixties, fashioned themselves ‘The Set’, convinced that they were destined to change the world, and particularly Scotland. No one could accuse Brown of conducting himself like Adam Morris, the ambitious undergraduate played by Tom Conti in the successful 1970s television dramatisation of Frederic Raphael’s novel The Glittering Prizes. But the more self-important of his elegant friends – like Wilf Stevenson, who hosted dinner parties – and those who joined Brown at the cinema, theatre and particularly the Abbotsford pub just south of Princes Street, regarded themselves even if inaccurately as Edinburgh’s equivalent of the Bloomsbury set, noisily quoting artists, writers and politicians. Even during his absence from those meetings, Brown’s ghost was present. ‘People liked being around him,’ recalled Madeline Arnot, a guest at his flat. ‘Everyone liked talking to him. He was at the centre of everything.’ While ‘The Set’ cast themselves in an unspoken competition as society’s future movers and shakers, the city’s working class – as remote from the students as the Eskimos – classed the boisterous elite as a gaggle of Hooray Henrys. By any measure, they were neither a golden nor a doomed generation.

      The routine presence at these parties in 1970 of Princess Margarita of Romania, the eldest daughter of the exiled king, enhanced that image. Good-looking, charming and intelligent, Margarita had been introduced to Brown by John Smythe, one of the six people sharing his flat. Heads turned, it was said, whenever Margarita, of French, Greek and Romanian parentage, with a pedigree derived from the Habsburgs, Romanovs and Hohenzollerns, entered a room. The modest student of sociology and politics, who spoke English with a middle-class accent, hid her real background. Her family’s small home was near Lake Geneva, but thanks to her friendships with the king and queen of Spain, the exiled king of Greece, and Europe’s minor royalty, she was accustomed to living in mansions and palaces across the continent. Since their backgrounds were so different, Brown’s attraction to the ‘Red Princess’, as she became known, puzzled many. Some of Brown’s flatmates, who like him were becoming increasingly politically active, were irritated by the gilt-edged invitations arriving through the letterbox just as their flat was becoming the centre of a revolution. He offered no explanation when she moved into his bedroom. His silence reflected his Scottish respect for her privacy and, more importantly, his belief that intimacies were not public property. Friends, however, understood the attraction. Margarita’s looks and character were exceptional and, more important, compared to Katie, the English county girl whom Brown had been dating, she was unusually supportive. Unlike British girls, Margarita was accustomed to women offering compassion and encouragement to their men, which precisely matched Brown’s requirements. She provided maternal care, acting like a mother hen, worrying about the health of his remaining eye, deciding what he should eat (usually tuna and lettuce sandwiches), wear (the same tweed and flannels), and occasionally do. ‘He’s too busy to wash up,’ Margarita told their flatmates after the jolly communal breakfasts. Dressed in a pink nightdress, she insisted that Gordon’s life’s work was too important to be distracted by domesticities. Her pedigree had given her experience and toleration beyond her years. Her enjoyment of making decisions on his behalf appealed to a man who disliked annoying friends and who was reluctant to cause upset. But the princess would also roar in his face if his Presbyterian obduracy became irksome, deflating the pompous Fife boy.

      Those who would subsequently criticise Brown for favouring intense hard work at the cost of human relationships would not have recognised him during those early months of the relationship.