The dawn of a new leader

As Gordon Brown moved into No 10 Downing Street, pride of place in his new study has been given to a hardback collection of some of his late father's sermons in the Church of Scotland. The book was compiled by the Chancellor and his brothers, John and Andrew, to mark John Ebenezer Brown's 80th birthday in 1994, four years before he died.

The first sermon, poignantly, is called "Our Need of Vision" and was written with a father's heartfelt concern for a son who had nearly been blinded.

Dr Brown delivered the sermon at St Brycedale Church in Kirkcaldy, where the family lived after Gordon, his second son, had gone blind in his left eye and had nearly lost the sight of the other. The darkness descended several months after Gordon was kicked in the head during an end of term rugby match shortly before he went to Edinburgh University.

When he arrived at the university in 1967, he was just 16, having been fast-tracked in a pioneering scheme for the brightest pupils. He had succeeded at just about everything he tried, whether in the classroom or on the sports pitch. But after two terms at university he was left lying in hospital, both eyes covered in patches, unable to move or read. The retina in his left eye was detached. After three failed operations, the sight was gone for good.

Steadfast determination

A few months later, while playing tennis, he noticed the same symptoms in his right eye. After undergoing experimental surgery at Edinburgh Infirmary, the eye was saved. But the combined effect on the sports loving, academically brilliant 17-year-old was profound. Gordon Brown feared, as he lay in total darkness for weeks at a time, that he was going blind.

"It made him more determined," says his older brother John, now a public relations consultant in Glasgow. "He was in more of a hurry; he feared he might lose his sight altogether. It was a bleak time."

Gordon, John and Andrew were brought up in the manse in Kirkcaldy, where they enjoyed, by comparison to other families, a relatively privileged existence. Until Gordon was three, the family lived in Glasgow, a city scarred by acute poverty and rising unemployment. The experience in Glasgow defined the social conscience of Brown and in turn had a decisive impact on his son's philosophy. "Our father never told us which way he voted," John Brown says, "but you knew, because of the poverty that he had seen, that he leaned towards Labour."

Yet, curiously, Gordon was named after his mother Elizabeth's brother, who was a member of the Conservative Party.

Gordon attended the nursery school, where he met Murray — now Lord — Elder, who is still a close friend and who was chief-of-staff to John Smith, the late Labour leader. When Gordon was four he enrolled at Kirkcaldy West, the local primary school, and excelled at mathematics.

At ten, he joined Kirkcaldy High, an ancient school with a new 1950s campus. It was selective in its intake and its 1,200 pupils were given a "hothouse" education.

His father was the school chaplain and his Presbyterian writ ran at home as well as school, so Gordon and his brothers had to sneak out of the manse to buy the Sunday newspapers. A dutiful son, Gordon always practised his father's Samaritan message with whoever came to the door seeking help. One day, his mother was surprised on her return from shopping to find her 10-year-old son deep in conversation with a notorious house burglar. While her initial instinct was to worry about the family heirlooms, Gordon was not chastised.

Whatever mystery there may have been about how his parents voted, there was little doubt, even when he was still in his short trousers, which way the young Gordon was inclined. At lunch at Kirkcaldy High, he and Murray Elder had debates on socialism.

In April 1962, aged 11, he wrote an article in The Gazette about a church campaign in favour of television commercials against the twin demons of alcohol and tobacco. Gordon concluded his piece with a typically opinionated flourish: "Let us hope that this plan will be a success and that the sale of drink and cigarettes to the younger and older generation will fall when these [commercials] against drink and cigarettes are shown." His biggest scoop was an exclusive interview with US astronaut John Glenn in 1963. Gordon had written to Nasa with a series of questions about America's first space mission. Lt-Col Glenn, who had orbited the earth three times, answered 12-year-old Gordon's questions, to the amazement of his big brother. "He just had so much confidence," John Brown says.

On the same issue, the schoolboy pundit delivered a remarkably prescient view on the national political scene after a Scottish by-election in which the Conservatives, rocked by the Profumo crisis, lost their deposit. Referring to the Conservative Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, shortly before being admitted to hospital, Gordon wrote: "Now, at the age of 69, many people rate him too old for this responsible job. The trend in the country now points to younger men like Harold Wilson and Edward Heath." Within a year, Wilson was prime minister and Heath was Conservative leader.

By the time he was 12, he had already pushed Labour Party leaflets through the letter boxes of neighbours' homes and, while most of Gordon's school friends cared little about the assassination of JFK, he was devastated. Kenn McLeod, 57, who followed him from Kirkcaldy High to Edinburgh, says: "Gordon saw him as the future and could not believe the future had been so brutally snuffed out. He was shocked and stunned. He kept saying, ‘I cannot believe that this has happened'." At 14, he passed nine O-levels and shortly after he turned 15, he took his Highers, the equivalent of A-levels, securing five grade A's that confirmed Brown's prodigious talent.

Gordon was part of the E-stream — the ‘E' stood for early — which fast-tracked the brightest 16-year-olds to university. McLeod, now an educational adviser, says that the E-stream and brush with blindness were two of the most formative influences in his friend's life.

"We were constantly told the E-stream was an experiment and how we had to live up to expectations. Woe betide you if you didn't do well. Some people did not make it. Gordon noticed that those that dropped out felt very keenly that they had failed." He has been opposed to early selection ever since.

In many schools, the pupil who is consistently top of the form, or teacher's pet, would often be targeted by bullies. But Gordon won over the boys because he was a precocious talent on the sports field.

He was a fearless member of the scrum — playing flanker — in the rugby team at 15, while the other boys were 17 and 18; he was a junior tennis champion and played the violin in the orchestra. He was also popular with the girls who thought he was handsome and going places.

Bob Cuddihy, a colleague in student politics and a local television presenter, remembers: "Everybody was concerned about his eye. They would form a protective circle around him in the pub. There was always a queue of lasses, who were admirers. ‘He is so lovely, so good looking', they would say. They just went goggle-eyed. He had an energy, magnetism and a terrific voice. I saw the power Gordon had to mesmerise people."

Simon Pia, a radio presenter in Scotland who was tutored by Brown, says: "I never understood when you heard about this dour character. At that time, he had a very easy charm. He was a big star and had a natural way with people. He would hold his tutorials in his flat. He held all sorts of parties.

He had loads of friends from all backgrounds. He never indulged, but there was nothing disapproving about him either."

Fighting for a cause

He recalls one incident: "I went back to his flat with two friends at 3am on a Sunday and could hear the tapping of his typewriter. We stumbled up the hall to the living room and put on records. Gordon joined us for a drink. A couple of hours later, dawn was breaking as I was leaving the flat and Gordon was tapping away again."

While editing The Student magazine, he famously exposed the university's investments in pro-apartheid South Africa. Jonathan Wills, who was the first student rector of Edinburgh and now runs a seal and bird spotting business in

Shetland, recalls his first introduction. "His brother John said, ‘Here is my wee brother. He's a bit quiet but he is very clever'."

He was also very messy, even by student standards. Wills, who shared a flat with him for a while, said: "He was oblivious to his domestic surroundings. But it was at least better than his first flat. When I visited that a few years earlier, I vowed never to go back. There should have been a bio-hazard sign on it. It was a slum."

In yet another sign of his future parsimony, he demanded a full list of expenses and entertainment allowances paid to members of the administration. When the principal objected to a rise in grants because of the amount students spent on alcohol, Brown wrote back asking, "whether you have an equivalent figure for members of staff". Cuddihy says Brown was fearless and steadfast in his fight against the university leaders, who included senior high court judges.

After university and a spell of teaching, he began work as a researcher at Scottish Television, where colleagues recall an impressive young man who did a mean impression of the fascist Oswald Mosley during a mock interview. But his heart was set on a career in politics. He was then selected for the Labour seat of Dunfermline East in his family's backyard. When he announced his resignation to fight the seat in the 1983 general election, Bill Brown, the managing director of Scottish TV was unimpressed. He asked: "Can you tell me why we employed that young man?" Russell Galbraith, who was head of news and current affairs, replied: "Mark my words, one day we will be working for him."

A life less ordinary

-Gordon Brown was born in 1951 and educated at Kirkcaldy High School and Edinburgh University where he gained first class honours and then a doctorate.

-At the age of 11, he and his brother, John, founded The Gazette, which touted itself as Scotland's only newspaper sold in aid of African refugees.

-He became the second ever student rector of Edinburgh University and chairman of the university court between 1972 and 1975 at the age of 21.

-As an MP, Brown was the chair of the Labour Party Scottish Council (1983-1984). Before becoming shadow chancellor, he held two other senior posts on the opposition front bench — shadow chief secretary to the treasury (1987-1989) and shadow trade and industry secretary (1989-1992).

-Gordon Brown was appointed as Chancellor of the Exchequer on May 2, 1997. Since then, he has been the MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath.