Tributes paid as Tony Blair's father, Leo, dies

The former Prime Minister, who was with his father when he passed away yesterday at the age of 89, said he was 'privileged to have him as a dad'.

Mr Blair, who pulled out of an engagement with former US president Bill Clinton on Thursday night after his father fell ill, said: "He was a remarkable man.

"Raised in a poor part of Glasgow, he worked his way up from nothing, with great ambitions dashed by serious illness on the very brink of their fulfilment.

"He lost my mother, whom he adored, when she was still young. Yet he remained animated by an extraordinary spirit that was in him until the end."

Mr Blair Snr had a house in Shrewsbury but had reportedly been living in a nursing home recently.

Tributes to the former barrister came from both sides of the political divide in Shropshire today. Shrewsbury's Tory MP Daniel Kawczynski described him as a 'charming, decent man' and Labour Party chairman Alan Mosley said he had fond memories of him.

Mr Blair Snr was the son of travelling entertainers who gave him up for adoption. He was a Communist in his youth and served in the Army in the Second World War, studying law in his spare time after demobilisation, becoming a barrister and later a lecturer in Australia and Durham.

He was a Conservative Party member but his dream of entering Parliament was scotched by a stroke when he was in his late 30s, when Tony was 11.

His wife Hazel died of throat cancer in 1975.

Mr Blair Snr remarried and moved to Shropshire with his second wife, Olwyn, and switched political allegiance, joining the Monkmoor branch of the Labour Party in 1995.

Shrewsbury MP Daniel Kawczynski who had known Mr Blair Snr for many years, said: "He used to go for lunch at the Lord Hill Hotel in Shrewsbury every Sunday and I used to pop along to see him.

"He was so kind to me when I was first elected. He invited me round to his house and showed me lots of photos of his son Tony as a child.

"I remember the day before the 2005 General Election. A reporter from The Times was following me around for the day and when Leo saw me he gave me a big hug, which gave the newspaper a great page three photograph, a Conservative being hugged by the Labour Prime Minister's father.

"Leo had a terrible problem with his speech following a stroke but when the reporter asked him what advice he had for me as a young Tory, he said 'Vote Labour'.#

Intelligent

"When Mr Blair was Prime Minister he used to speak a lot about his father because he couldn't come to see him as often as he would have liked.

"His father was a very charming, decent man, he will be sorely missed and it is a very sad day."

Mansel Williams was Mr Blair Snr's representative on Shropshire Council when he lived in the Sutton area of Shrewsbury.

Councillor Williams said he was very sad to hear the news of his death and recalled the times he met Mr Blair Snr outside Shirehall.

"He'd be walking home from town and we'd have a little chat," he said.

Mr Blair Snr, a former barrister, struggled to speak as a result of a stroke in his late 30s but Councillor Williams said he did not let it get in his way.

"He was a natural," the councillor added. "He did not try to hide the fact that he could not easily respond.

"He was obviously an intelligent person, without a shadow of a doubt.

"I think he was proud of Tony. I think he was very proud of him.

"I would say to him, 'It must be very hard for you to read all this stuff about him' and he would nod.

"He was aware that his son was being criticised from time to time, as happens to everyone in public life, but more so if you're the Prime Minister."

Alan Mosley, chairman of the Shrewsbury Labour Party, said he never actually met Mr Blair Snr but was sad to learn of his death.

He added: "Leo was a member of the party and many members have memories of him.

"We send our commiserations to Tony Blair and his family at this sad time."

Former Shropshire Star reporter Russell Mulford, who spent 60 years covering Shrewsbury and Shropshire, came into contact with Mr Blair Snr when the barrister chaired industrial tribunals during the 1970s.

Mr Mulford, 82, from Shrewsbury, said: "He was part-time chairman of the tribunals in Shrewsbury and he was well respected and a very competent lawyer.

"He was certainly admired by both sides in industrial disputes, by employers and by employees as well."

His son's name may be synonymous with the rise of New Labour but Mr Blair Snr was associated with his son's Conservative rivals for much of his life.

He ran as a Tory MP in the 1960s but his political aspirations were shattered when he suffered a stroke shortly before the election, rendering him unable to speak properly.

From an early age, his son felt compelled to follow in his father's footsteps and, one day, achieve the political goals his father was forced to abandon.

The former Labour prime minister wrote in his 2010 autobiography, A Journey, that he shared many of the same traits as his father who was 'motivated, determined, with a hard-focused ambition'.

He described how his father had shown him why people became Conservatives.

"He had been poor. He was working class. He aspired to be middle-class," Mr Blair wrote.

"He worked hard, made it on his merits, and wanted his children to do even better than him. He thought, as many did of his generation, that the logical outcome of this striving, born of this attitude, was to be a Tory."

Mr Blair Snr was born in 1923 as the illegitimate son of travelling entertainers Celia Ridgeway and Charles Parsons.

He was adopted by Clydeside shipworker James Blair and his wife Mary, whom his biological parents met on tour in Glasgow.

He went on after the Second World War to become a member of the Conservative Party and chairman of the Durham Conservative Association.

Formerly a lifelong Tory supporter, he joined Shrewsbury's Monkmoor branch of the Labour Party in 1995.

By Simon Hardy