Early Life
The son of John Herbert Prescott, a railway signalman and Labour councillor, and Phyllis, and grandson of a miner, Prescott was born in Prestatyn, Flintshire (now in Denbighshire), Wales, on 31 May 1938. In 2009, he said: "I’ve always felt very proud of Wales and being Welsh...I was born in Wales, went to school in Wales and my mother was Welsh. I’m Welsh. It’s my place of birth, my country."
He left Wales in 1942 at the age of four and was brought up initially in Brinsworth in South Yorkshire, England. He attended Brinsworth Primary School (known then as Brinsworth Manor School), where in 1949 he sat but failed the 11-plus examination to attend Rotherham Grammar School. Shortly after, his family moved to Upton, Cheshire, and he went to school in nearby Ellesmere Port, where he attended Grange Secondary Modern School.
He became a steward and waiter in the Merchant Navy, thus avoiding National Service, working for Cunard, and was a popular left-wing union activist. Prescott's time in the Merchant Marine included a cruise from England to New Zealand in 1957. Among the passengers was Sir Anthony Eden, recuperating after his resignation over the Suez Crisis. Prescott reportedly described Eden as a "real gentleman". Apart from serving Eden, who stayed in his cabin much of the time, Prescott also won several boxing contests, at which Eden presented the prizes. He married Pauline "Tilly" Tilston at Upton Church in Chester on 11 November 1961. He then went to the independent Ruskin College in Oxford, which specialises in courses for union officials, where he gained a diploma in economics and politics in 1965. In 1968, he obtained a BSc in economics and economic history at the University of Hull.
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