Wilson later wrote in his memoirs: 'I had long held G.D.H.

At Oxford University he came under the influence of his socialist history tutor, G.

Later that year he won a history exhibition at Jesus College. But Mary says she took much longer to make up her mind. (5) Wilson later claimed it was love at almost first sight. She had left school at sixteen and was working as a typist at Lever Brothers in Port Sunlight. Mary was the daughter of the Revd Daniel Baldwin, a Congregational minister. In the summer of 1934, Harold Wilson met Gladys Mary Baldwin, while visiting the tennis club where she was a member. He was not much attracted by or good at team games, but concentrated on the rather lonely sport of long-distance running.' (4) Harold Wilson - Oxford University The centre of his extra-curricular activity was the local branch of the Boy Scouts. He was much less inquisitive culturally than was his fairly near Yorkshire neighbour and very near contemporary Denis Healey. He was superb at the syllabus, but he ranged little outside it. But he showed no wide intellectual curiosity. He was always a pre-eminent examination passer. His biographer, Roy Jenkins, has pointed out: 'Wilson was a remarkably successful pupil, both at Royds Hall and at Wirral grammar school. He was to become an intensely loyal, warm man but a lonely figure with few friends to whom he could relate his feelings.' (3) Harold learned that anxieties and problems were best kept under personal control. Each member was a 'self-contained, self-sufficient person, disinclined to display feelings'.

The family instilled in Harold an austere view of life. Wilson's father had been a supporter of the Liberal Party but after the First World War he changed his allegiance to the Labour Party: 'Although never himself poor, the young Harold saw real poverty and the reliance on charity all around him. He was more or less top in everything.' (2) He was the sort of boy a teacher comes across only once or twice in a lifetime. One of his teachers, Edgar Whitwarm, later recalled: 'To Harold it was effortless. Wilson was educated at New Street Elementary School (1920-1927), Royds Hall School (1927-1932) and Bebington Grammar School (1932-1934). His father was a chemist and his mother, a former school teacher. Harold Wilson, the son of Herbert Wilson (1882–1971) and his wife, Ethel Seddon (1882–1957), was born in Milnsbridge on the outskirts of Huddersfield on 11th March 1916.

Harold Wilson by Ben Pimlott