Variety Certainly Adds Spice

As a youth on Tyneside he saved a drowning girl's life. As a grown man in London, he championed disabled students' rights and was on the famous Warnock Committee looking into the education of disabled children. Ex-Labour MP Denis Coe is, however, the last person to think of himself as a hero.

His is a life lived to the full. Accepting the whims of fate and going with the flow, he has had a fulfilling and happy domestic life whilst making a career first in education, then in politics, and latterly in the arts.

Many people, particularly youngsters, would be that much poorer in their life experiences had it not been for Denis Coe making his mark - leading the group that set up the bureau for students with disabilities that would become SKILL, for example, and, more recently, being the founder of the highly influential and successful British Youth Opera.

Along the way, he has come to know the 'good and the great', and the famous names populating the book are among the ingredients adding the spice to a life of enormous variety.