Cherie Blair

t 16 I had long hair in pigtails, and was terribly thin and letter to my gawky. I certainly wasn’t a sporty kid but I was good at public speaking and drama and singing so that was the younger self. A way I could be popular. I went to what they call a direct grant grammar school – there were 70 children in my primary school year and two girls got into this grammar school. Most of the children in my grammar school were better off than I was. They weren’t rich – this was a Catholic grammar school in a suburb of Liverpool – they 1970 THE YEAR CHERIE were just better off than us. And they certainly didn’t come from a Cherie single-parent family as I did. So I was very conscious that the only way TURNS 16 I was going to get anywhere was if I could succeed, and at that time • The first New York City success was defined as doing well at exams. So that was my focus. marathon takes place Blair I think I got my outgoing trait from my parents. They met when they • Rock icon Jimi Hendrix is were actors on tour. My mother had to give up her acting when my found dead aged 27 Barrister, campaigner, political wife sister was born, and then when my father [well-known TV actor Tony Booth] abandoned us, when I was eight, she had to take up a job in • The Conservative Party Photo: a fish and chip shop. Thank goodness we had my grandmother, my under Edward Heath win Daily Mirror /Mirrorpix/Getty Images /Mirrorpix/Getty Mirror Daily father’s mother, who helped out with the childcare and gave us a roof the general election over our head. But it was difficult. I don’t remember my mum really having many new clothes, she spent all her money on my sister and I. My mother left school at 14 because her own mother died, and she had to look after her 10-year-old brother and her father, who was a miner. My mum loved him, he was self-taught, he was a poet. My mum loved literature and my paternal grandmother loved reading, so we weren’t a household that didn’t have books. And my grandma always had a 1983 very strong sense of justice and right and wrong. We were always very Celebrating Tony’s arrival in politically aware. I joined the Labour Party when I was 16. Parliament with her dad and his partner Pat Phoenix I didn’t really consider being an actor because I’d seen the effect of my father’s precarious career – he was very successful but sadly he spent it all on what he described as “drink and crumpet”. I was Photo: very conscious of all the sacrifices my mum and grandma made and I wanted to make sure that I had a job that would bring me financial Trinity Mirror / Mirrorpix / Alamy / Mirrorpix Mirror Trinity security so I could share that financial security with them. My then- BEAT BOREDOM! boyfriend’s mother said to me, “Cherie, you’ve always been good at debating, why don’t you think about being a lawyer?” I had no idea BE UPLIFTED! Buy our Letter To My Younger Self what that meant or involved. I’d never met anyone who was a lawyer. book, available now from all good But I thought, that sounds like a way of using my speaking skills, and online booksellers at the same time earning money. Very few people were divorced in those days so it was a big thing to deal with when my father left my mother. He was quite famous, about to get on to Till Death Us Do Part [the popular sitcom of the 1995 Sixties and Seventies]. And my grandma’s cousin was our local parish He managed to charm me eventually, but when I first met Tony we Street. She came with me when we met the Pope, she met the Queen. A barrister since 1976, priest so that didn’t necessarily help either. Also, without a working were rivals for the same scholarship. And then for the same place in We did all sorts of things that neither of us would ever have dreamed Cherie is sworn in as a father we had much less money. But in another way I was very lucky chambers. My pupil master said to me, Cherie, there’s only one place of. But my own grandmother died in 1987, so she only saw me become Queen’s Counsel (QC) because my grandfather – my dad’s father – was alive. He was very here and there’s a boy and there’s a girl and, obviously, we have to a barrister, she didn’t see those other things. I always remember the fond of my mother. I don’t think he really forgave my father for go for the boy. I knew more about the law than he did, but of course first time I went with Tony to the Vatican, to see Pope John Paul II, and abandoning her. Even before my father left I was brought up very it was a disadvantage being a woman, especially a working-class we got the official visit, and I could hear my grandma in my head as I much as part of his family. Sometimes I wasn’t entirely sure whether woman with a Liverpool accent. In those days people just said he was was walking down the corridors of the Vatican, saying, well we might Photo: my dad was my dad or my bigger brother. a better bet. Which just goes to show how wrong stereotypes can be have had a priest in the family but our Cherie met the Pope. because I’m still a practising lawyer 45 years on and he gave up the Richard Smith / Alamy Smith Richard The 16-year-old me used to say she was going to be the first woman law after seven years for some other career entirely. If I could go back to any time and live it again it would have to be, prime minister. So maybe she would be surprised to find out that I for us as a family, the moment in ’97 when we won the election. never was. Or maybe she’d be surprised that I actually did make it to I hadn’t realised when Tony became prime minister that there There was a series of events, starting with the exit poll, then going 10 Downing Street, albeit on my husband’s coattails. Though the would be such interest in me. And then of course Tony and I were over to Tony’s seat. And seeing that my old seat [she stood for Labour better way to get there would be to do it yourself of course. Maybe quite different from our predecessors. I was the first prime minister’s in North Thanet in 1983, losing to Tory Roger Gale], which had been she’d be amazed that I did become a QC like one of my heroes, Rose spouse to have gone to university. It just wasn’t the thing for women Tory the whole time I was growing up, had become a Labour seat that Heilbron, the Liverpudlian woman who was the very first female QC. to do that. We were also different in that we had a young family, our night. That was an amazing moment. We came back to London and kids went to the local state school. So there was a lot of interest in all of the dawn broke, and the sun came up, and we went into the gathering If I could go back and give my young self advice it might be to that. I became conscious about what I wore, how I looked. I did quite of the Labour Party members and realised that after so many years of understand, which I didn’t until I went to the bar to do my pupillage, a lot of high-profile cases as a lawyer, but there you’re judged by your Tory rule we actually had a chance to make things better. that in this world it’s not just about how much you know, it’s also successes or otherwise in court – with the wig and gown, it’s not a about who you know. And I didn’t know anyone. I definitely felt the beauty contest. So it was a bit different being in the public eye when no cherieblair.org imposter syndrome at times. Just little things like going to eat the one was interested in what you said. In fact you weren’t supposed to say Interview: Jane Graham @Janeannie dinners at Lincoln’s Inn [the London-based, very prestigious body anything. People tended to focus on how you look. So if I could give my 1997 of lawyers] – they presented port at the end and I had no idea what younger self advice I’d say learn how to do your hair and makeup. WHAT DID BRADLEY WIGGINS, BRIAN MAY AND With her family on the it was. I just didn’t know the etiquette of lots of things. I only realise LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA TELL THEIR YOUNGER SELVES? doorstep of 10 Downing Street now that a lot of what we were doing in the halls and Lincoln’s Inn was If I could have one last conversation with anyone – it’s a hard choice the day after Tony becomes PM what they did in Oxford colleges and public schools, but they were between my mother or my grandmother.

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