Blair's past: From a homeless dropout to PM
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-02-29 15:11

British Prime Minister Tony Blair once spent a night sleeping on a park bench as a teenager, his office has confirmed, after a tabloid newspaper revealed Blair's past as a "homeless dropout."

The Sunday Mirror reported that Blair's wife Cherie had told guests at a Downing Street reception last week that Blair, now 50, had slept on a bench near London's Euston station in 1971 because he had nowhere else to stay.

He had come to London after leaving Fettes College, an Edinburgh private school, and before beginning studies at Oxford University.

Cherie Blair reportedly said the experience had given the prime minister a special interest in the problem of homelessness.

A spokesman for Blair's 10 Downing Street office confirmed the incident had occurred.

"After he left school the prime minister came down to London," the spokesman said on customary condition of anonymity. "He spent a night on a park bench before he sorted out somewhere to stay."