He has been blind from birth. No nearby school could teach him, so at the age of four he was sent from his close-knit family to a cold, cavernous boarding school for the blind, allowed to return home once a month. His foreman father died after falling into a vat of boiling water at the gasworks. Afterward, the company balked at paying compensation, and the boy and his mother became "bread and dripping" poor. He was expected to become a piano tuner or Braille typist and not offered an academic course. So when people complain that Britains New Labour Party is...
