Sarah Brown reflects on life at No 10 Downing Street

Mrs Brown talked about the impact of the 2007 global financial crisis, a meal with Mikhail Gorbachev and her husband Gordon’s love of football.

Former prime minister Gordon Brown’s wife Sarah has spoken of the “absolute privilege” she felt occupying No 10 during a talk that reflected on a global financial crisis, a disappointing meal with Mikhail Gorbachev and her husband’s love of football.

The 60-year-old mother-of-two said at a talk held at Edinburgh’s Fringe Festival her family’s time in Downing Street from 2007 to 2010 was “an absolute rollercoaster” owing to the financial crisis that hit the world in the first year of Gordon Brown’s tenure.

She revealed they felt their living and working situation was very precarious at that time, recalling Mr Brown would occasionally ask her if she would be prepared to vacate the property if his plans to deal with the crisis failed.

“A couple of times Gordon came through and went ‘OK, today it might all end’,” she said, adding he went on to say on one occasion: “I don’t know if I’ll still be in a job in 24 hours’ time. Could you be ready to leave?”

Sarah and Gordon Brown leaving 10 Downing Street with their sons in 2010 (PA)

“I’ve always thought of Downing Street as a public building that has no public access. Decisions are made about everybody’s lives every day and so you want people to be able to feel a part of that.

“I just wanted to get as many different groups of people from around the country representing all the best of Britain to just come through that door as often as possible.”

Sarah Brown shaking hands with a Gurkha in the garden of Downing Street — Sarah Brown meeting with Gurkhas in the garden of Downing Street (Stefan Rousseau/PA)

“I said quite early on that my ground rule for travelling was that I wouldn’t go on a trip where you were in the air for longer than you were on the ground at the other end.

“That probably eliminated half the trips, but I did go to the G7s, I went to the Nato summit, I went to the G20 and I hosted a G20.”

Mrs Brown went on to recall the many opportunities she enjoyed to meet world leaders, including a dinner in Germany with former president of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev she revealed did not end up quite as she had first hoped.

“I realised I was to be seated next to Gorbachev,” she said. “I thought, this is going to be the most amazing conversation of my life.

“There was a woman who was an interpreter and somebody came up and said ‘you haven’t got the right paperwork’ and they took her away.

“I sat next to Gorbachev for hours and he didn’t speak English and I don’t know Russian. So the whole time every time someone said something he just put his thumbs up.”

Sarah and Gordon Brown walking hand-in-hand before the Labour Party Conference in Bournemouth in 2007 — Sarah and Gordon Brown at the Labour Party Conference in Bournemouth in 2007 (PA)

“We’d been in contact through work, he phoned me up and said would I like to meet for supper?” she said.

“We went and had dinner and for about an hour-and-a-half we had the most amazing time, we were talking and then he started looking at his watch.

“Then I realised it was the Ireland v Italy game that night. He’d obviously worked out we’d have dinner then he would be back in time for the match.

“I’ve got brothers so I could see the signs so I said ‘why don’t we finish this dinner another night’ and off he whizzed to go and watch the match.

“He loves football. When things were really stressful or really difficult, the two things that could relax him was seeing the kids and watching a football match.”

Mrs Brown was being interviewed at a full capacity show at the Gilded Balloon in the National Museum of Scotland hosted by Matt Forde.