9 July: Edward Heath

Edward Heath, former Prime Minister of the UK was born on this date in 1916. Here are 10 things you might not know about him:

1. His full name was Sir Edward Richard George Heath, commonly known as “Ted”.

2. He came from a working class background. His father was a carpenter and his mother a lady’s maid.

3. He received a second class degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Balliol College, Oxford.

4. Heath served in the Second World War, reaching the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. In 1944 he took part in the Normandy Landings.

5. One of his major interests outside politics was playing and conducting Music. He won an organ scholarship during his first term at university and famously brought his Steinway grand Piano to Ten Downing Street.

6. Another of his lifelong passions was sailing. He bought his first yacht Morning Cloud in 1969 and won the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race that year. During his time as Prime Minister he captained Britain's winning team for the Admiral's Cup in 1971.

7. Heath was a supporter of the Lancashire Football club Burnley.

8. Heath never married, which naturally led to allegations that he was either gay or a paedophile. At one time, he did have a childhood friend called Kay Raven, who people thought he might marry, but Heath didn’t make a move because he was too busy establishing his career after the war and had "perhaps ... taken too much for granted". Kay, meanwhile, got tired of waiting and married someone else.

9. He was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1970 until 1974. Heath continued to serve in the House of Commons until 2001, becoming the Father of the House.

10. Heath's autobiography, The Course of My Life, was published in 1998.

Character birthday

Castle, power armour user and member of Combat Team Epsilon. Castle has a highly competitive personality and was attracted to the idea of Combat Teams. He approached each of the Combat Team directors in turn but they all laughed at the idea of what they saw as "a dwarf in power armour". (Castle is not a dwarf – he is short but his body is perfectly proportioned.) Neither were any of them impressed that he turned up without an appointment to hard sell himself.

His next plan was to announce publicly that he would take on Megamek, Combat Team Epsilon's huge mechanoid. The two turned out to be evenly matched, which impressed Epsilon sufficiently that they recruited him.