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Edward Heath
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==Early life== Heath was born at 54 Albion Road, Broadstairs, Kent, on 9 July 1916, the son of William George Heath (1888β1976), a carpenter who built [[airframe]]s for [[Vickers Limited|Vickers]] during the First World War, and was subsequently employed as a builder<ref name=marwick158>British Society Since 1945: The Penguin Social History of Britain, [[Arthur Marwick]], Penguin Books, 1996, p. 158.</ref> and Edith Anne Heath (''nΓ©e'' Pantony; 1888β1951), a lady's maid.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/jul/18/guardianobituaries.conservatives|title=Sir Edward Heath|work=Guardian|first1=Francis |last1=Boyd |first2=Norman |last2=Shrapnel|date=18 July 2005|access-date=8 March 2021}}</ref> His father was later a successful small businessman after taking over a building and decorating firm. Heath's paternal grandfather had run a small dairy business, and when that failed worked as a porter at [[Broadstairs railway station|Broadstairs Station]] on the Southern Railway.<ref name=marwick158/> Edward was four years old when his younger brother, John, was born; there was no question that Edward was the "favoured brother".<ref>{{cite book |first=John |last=Campbell |title=Edward Heath |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I7wqAQAAMAAJ |publisher=Pimlico |year=1993 |isbn=978-0-7126-5898-0 |page=7}}</ref> Heath was known as "Teddy" as a young man.<ref>{{cite book |first=John |last=Campbell|title=Edward Heath: A Biography |year=2013 |page=5 |publisher=Pimlico |isbn=978-1-84595-205-1}}</ref> He was educated at [[Chatham House Grammar School]] in [[Ramsgate]], and in 1935 with the aid of a county scholarship he went up to study at [[Balliol College, Oxford]].<ref>Ziegler, ''Edward Heath'' (2010), ch. 1.</ref> In later years, Heath's peculiar accent, with its "strangulated" vowel sounds, combined with his non-Standard pronunciation of "l" as "w" and "out" as "eout", was satirised by [[Monty Python]] in the audio sketch "[[Teach Yourself Heath]]" (released on a 7" flexi-disc single included with initial copies of their 1972 LP ''[[Monty Python's Previous Record]]'').<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZByWk6SPM0 | archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/NZByWk6SPM0| archive-date=2021-12-11 | url-status=live|title=Learn How To Speak Propah English β Ted Heath | Teach Yourself Heath | date=24 December 2007|publisher=YouTube |access-date=20 April 2010}}{{cbignore}}</ref> Heath's biographer [[John Campbell (biographer)|John Campbell]] speculates that his speech, unlike that of his father and younger brother, who both spoke with Kent accents, must have undergone "drastic alteration on encountering Oxford", although retaining elements of Kent speech.
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