Volume 44, Number 10 · June 12, 1997
The Self-Made Man
By James Fenton
I have a modest contribution to make to the story of Tony Blair, the leader of the recent May Day Massacre, which left the Conservative Party in Britain with its lowest number of seats since 1832. It is a memory which must date from 1962, when Blair is nine and I am thirteen, and we are at Durham Choristers School, in the playground during morning break. Blair and his friend Ellis come up to me—a bold thing to do, since I am head boy and they are only 'day bugs' (day boys) and so much younger, and this is a school which strongly deprecates the casual mixing of older and younger boys. So when they come up to me with their smiling and enthusiastic faces, I know they must have a special purpose. They have. Blair asks me what seems like a very intelligent question, to which I make a noncommittal answer.
Feature, 2232 words
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