The career path of the former MP Ken Eastham, who has died aged 96, was at one time in the last century typical of many of those who sought to pursue a life in Labour politics. Had he been from Yorkshire, he could have stepped from the pages of a novel by JB Priestley, a stalwart representative of the common sense of the common man.
He was an industrial engineer, a trade union shop steward and a Manchester City councillor before arriving at the age of 51 at Westminster. There he proved to be reliably diligent in the pursuit of the interests of his Manchester Blackley constituents and of the English north-west, without ever seeking public reward or caring about personal recognition.
