PRIME Minister Gordon Brown has expressed his gratitude 40 years on to a blind ex-Warwick University historian who helped him in his darkest days when he temporarily lost his sight.
The 17-year-old Gordon was immobile for months and temporarily blind in an Edinburgh hospital following operations to save his sight, which he ultimately lost in one eye.
Dr Fred Reid, from Kenilworth, had been told in 1968 of a young Edinburgh University History student who was in hospital following an accident playing rugby, who was frustrated that blindness was preventing him reading.
The then 30-year-old historian got some history books recorded onto tape and sent them to the young man he didn’t know.
He thought nothing more of it, until he received a surprise invitation to Downing Street, when Mr Brown thanked him for his kindly gesture four decades before.
Mr Brown has spoken openly for the first time of his gratitude to Dr Reid.
I sent some books to a young student who had been blinded - he turned out to be Gordon Brown.
SOME 40 years ago, 17-year-old history student Gordon Brown lay blind in hospital, bored and not knowing if he would see again.
With both eyes heavily bandaged, they were his darkest months.
He had undergone operations on both eyes having the previous year been kicked in the face in a scrum in a school rugby game which left him with detached retinas.
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