Excerpt: "Speaking for Myself"

Oct. 15, 2008 — -- Cherie Blair, wife of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, shares her life from her childhood on into the courtship with and marriage to one of the most influential men in British politics.

Read an excerpt of Cherie Blair's autobiography below and check out "Good Morning America's" Library by clicking here.

The story starts in the early 1950s, when two young actors meeton tour in the provinces. As happens in such stories, they fall inlove and are soon in the family way. When a daughter is born, theyare overjoyed and overwhelmed at the same time. Sadly, the strainof living in shabby digs, short of money and work, and with a smallbaby in tow, proves too much. Thus, when their baby is six weeksold, they leave her in the care of the father's parents in Liverpooland go off to the big city to seek their fortune.

The year was 1954, the baby was me, and I never grew tired ofhearing how my parents met, of their respective childhoods, and, ofcourse, of how I got my unusual name.

My father, Tony Booth, fell into acting largely by accident. Whiledoing his national service, he conducted a prolonged flirtation witha colonel's wife. As she was heavily into amateur dramatics, hedecided that this was the way in. And so the stage was set for therest of his life. Although he regularly complained that the theaterwas dominated by gay men, this state of affairs presented him withplenty of opportunities in terms of the ladies.

My mum took her profession a good deal more seriously. Oneyear younger than my father, Joyce Smith had been born andbrought up in Ilkeston, a mining village west of Nottingham.Her mother, born Hannah Meer, remains something of anenigma. Beyond her unusual maiden name and the fact that she wasa local beauty with lustrous blue-black hair, I know nothing abouther. My mum's father, however, was an extraordinary man, totallyself-educated. Jack Smith first went down the pit at the age of fourteenas an ordinary miner, but he was soon promoted to shotfirer— first into the mine at the beginning of a shift, armed solelywith a miner's lamp. His job was to test for gas. By the end of hiscareer, Jack had made mine manager.

From time to time we would go over to Ilkeston to visit mygrandfather, who was still living in the house where my mother hadgrown up. I remember being terrified of the huge blue scar on hisface. If you had an accident down in the pit, he later explained, thewound could never be adequately cleaned of coal dust, whichturned the scar tissue blue. Another thing that intrigued me was thehuge amount of water he used to wash himself. He no longerworked underground by then, so he had no need to douse himself inthis excessive manner, but old habits die hard. The bathroom whereHannah would have scrubbed his back was still downstairs, and thetoilet paper was still squares of newspaper on a hook.

Grandad Jack had always wanted to be a doctor, but for the eldestof eleven children, this was impossible. The nearest he got to itwas joining the St. John's Ambulance Brigade and becominginvolved with pit rescue. Later he gave lessons in first aid, using myreluctant mother as a guinea pig. He was a man of prodigiousenergy, active in the Labour Party and Salvation Army. He alsowrote poetry and toward the end of his life obtained a degree fromthe Open University, Britain's state-run distance-learning universityfor mature students. He worked until he was eighty, becoming anight watchman after he retired from the mines.

As if that wasn't enough, he was also a soccer referee and ransports clubs for young people. My mother would be obliged to joinin thought she always hated these activities. What she enjoyed morewas the youth club that he ran during World War II. He was a considerablemusician — there wasn't a brass instrument he couldn'tplay — and having trained the boys and girls in the club, he wouldvisit old people's homes and hospitals and put on little shows. Mymum played the piano, flute, and violin.

Mum had an unusual education for the time, attending one of thefirst Rudolf Steiner schools, Michael House. Everything about itwas avant-garde. She began school in 1936, at the age of three and ahalf. Music and movement, known as Eurythmy, was central tosteiner's ethos. Michael House even boasted its own theatre, andfrom the beginning, my mum was involved in school plays.

But then tragedy struck. Shortly after the war ended, the grandmotherI never met died at the age of forty-two. Although Hannahwas a local girl, the Meer family wasn't close, and no help wasforthcoming from her sisters after her death. So on top of going toschool, fourteen-year-old Joyce now had the house, her ten-year-oldbrother, and her father to look after. Before leaving home early inthe morning, my grandfather would ensure that the fire was lit, butthat was the extent of his involvement in household chores. It fell tomy mother to do everything else: shopping, cooking, washing, ironing,and cleaning, not to mention scrubbing her father's back whenhe got home from the pit. Being a clever girl, she planned to stay inschool until she was eighteen and do her "Matric," the exams thatwere then the passport to university and beyond. But after a year ofattempt to marry schooling and housekeeping, she was asked toleave Michael House.

Meanwhile she had met a woman called Beryl John, whose careeron the stage had been cut short by illness but who ran an amateurdramatic society and gave private lessons. How my grandfathercould pay for these lessons, I have no idea, but he did. All went welluntil, out of the blue, he announced he was marrying a womannamed label, whom my mother had never met and knew nothingabout beyond her name. Not unreasonably, perhaps, my mum tookcomplete umbrage at this interloper, and the day her father married,she packed her suitcase and left. She never lived under their roofagain.

Encouraged by my auntie Beryl (as I later called her). Mum appliedto and was accepted by the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, betterknown as RADA, as prestigious then as it is now Her father paid thetuition not because he thought it was a sensible thing to do, shebelieves, but out of guilt.At the end of her first year at RADA, she jumped at a summer jobwith the Earl Armstrong Repertory Company. Run by a husbandand-wife team the company, was based in Yorkshire. After one weekof rehearsals, the company set out for Wales, and the newly namedGale Howard (Beryl John had planned to use Gay Howard for herown thwarted career) was soon playing romantic leads oppositeTony Booth, a young actor from Liverpool with no training butcharisma to burn. It proved a real baptism of fire. At one time, mymum recalls, the actors had thirty shows under their belts and stillhad to do everything themselves: sew costumes, sell tickets, makeand paint the scenery, and change the sets. Performing was just theicing on the cake. If a larger cast was called for, there would be anynumber of keen amateurs, wherever they went, at no cost.

September arrived all too quickly, and a new term at RADA wasbeckoning. Drama schools are all very well, but as any professionalactor will tell you, there is nothing like the real thing, and GaleHoward never went back. More Welsh towns followed, and in oneof them — possibly in Rhayader — I was conceived. Next to theonly local theater was a café the company used to frequent, run bythe mother and grandmother of an eight-year-old girl so taken withthe theater that every night she would climb out of her bedroomwindow on the ground floor and persuade somebody at the stagedoor to let her in. After the show Tony and Gale — at twenty-oneand twenty, barely more than kids themselves — would escort thelittle imp home, with no one any the wiser. That Christmas foundthem back in Rhayader, where the run comprised three pantomimesand one Christmas play. The name of the play is now lost, but thecast included two dogs called Schmozzle and Kerfuffle. In the pantomimesmy mother played Cinderella, the princess in The Princessand the Swineherd, and one of the babes in The Babes in the Wood.

The other babe was played by the ecstatic café owner's daughter,achieving her dream of appearing onstage, albeit with no lines.By the end of the season my parents knew that my mother waspregnant, and when the Armstrongs refused to increase their wages,they had no option but to head back to London. The café owner'sdaughter was devastated that she was about to lose her newfoundfriends. Mum promised that she would never forget her, and if theirbaby turned out to be a girl, she said, they would name it after her.And they did: Cherie.

Tony Booth and Gale Howard were married in Marylebone RegistryOffice in London, a decent six months before I was born. In theend it was all a bit of a rush: a job had come up at Castleford Rep,and they were due to start rehearsals the next day. Their witnesseswere the brother of the landlady my mother had had when she wasa student at RADA and the registrar's assistant, a Mr. Christmas.