Dennis Skinner: Children Of The Revolution

'The young Skinner had been very good at what would now be called power walking, an Olympic sport. One night his dad confronted him. "What tha' doing at night?" A friend of his had told him he'd seen Skinner walking along, "waggling his bloody arse", and his dad was panicking. "Straight out of Billy Eliott."
'But Skinner explained that he was training for the Sheffield Star Walk. When the race day came, off he went to Sheffield, and won a trophy.
"When I came back with my trophy, it was late – four o'clock, three buses. It was only 12 miles, but nobody had a car. And my mother said: 'Didn't you do well!' I said: 'How did you know?'" Skinner's father had concocted an excuse to leave the pit early that day, and go to Chesterfield to buy an early edition of the Sheffield Star with the race results, so he could tell everyone at work about his son's triumph the next morning. "So he'd never congratulate me. But in those moments? Yes."

Dennis Skinner talking to The Guardian.

PS Fascinating fact! John Prescott's favourite film is Billy Elliot. ""I have seen it more than six times and it's the only film that's made me cry."