BRITAIN: Sir Edward Heath's crowning achievement and his lasting legacy after more than half a century in the House of Commons was to lead Britain into Europe.
But he will also be remembered as the one-term Conservative prime minister who never forgave Margaret Thatcher for ousting him from the Tory leadership.
The bitterness over his loss of the leadership was deep, reflected in almost ceaseless, and sometimes savage, attacks on her policies.
No Tory leader this century had been subjected to such ferocious assaults from within the party. He consequently attracted controversy, anger and even bitterness among many Conservatives instead of basking in the afterglow of wide respect traditionally accorded to Tory elder statesmen.
Many right-wing Conservative MPs who regarded Britain's integration into Europe as disastrous treated Sir Edward with something approaching revulsion.
Sir Edward became Father of the House in 1992 as the continuously longest-serving MP, and was active in the Commons until his mid-80s. And he fought the 1997 general election with a vigour and gusto which would have done credit to a man half his age.
But on October 24st, 2000 - the day after he had conducted the election for the new Speaker - he announced that he would be retiring from the Commons at the end of that parliament, an announcement which brought a cascade of tributes, even from some of those Conservatives who were his principal critics.
Even John Major, the complete antithesis of Margaret Thatcher, often found himself a target for Heath's criticism, but the ex-prime minister's attacks on him were far less venomous than those directed at her.
In particular, he criticised Mr Major's "Back to Basics" slogan, saying that governments should train their sights on the future, not dwell on the past.
A builder's son from Broadstairs in Kent, Edward Richard George Heath reached the top by hard work and determination.
He was in many ways an unlikely choice to lead the Conservatives - grammar school education at Chatham House, Ramsgate, followed by an organ scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford. He had no personal wealth and remained a bachelor.
He was plunged into the second World War, volunteering for the army a few days after the outbreak of hostilities. Promotion followed as he served as a gunner in France, Belgium, Holland and Germany. He became adjutant of the regiment and displayed typical efficiency when his battery took part in crossing the Rhine.
Once back in Civvy Street, Mr Heath made up his mind to get into parliament - and meanwhile to earn his living in an area likely to aid that ambition.
Learning more about the machinery of government and public administration seemed a good idea and he joined the Civil Service, appointed to the Ministry of Civil Aviation.
In 1947 he was adopted as Tory candidate for Labour-held Bexley in North Kent, leaving the Civil Service and, to the surprise of those who knew him, entering journalism as news editor of the Church Times. There, according to a friend, he was "bored stiff", quitting in less than two years and opting for merchant banking.
His first election came in February 1950. The Attlee government clung on to power with a wafer-thin majority, deprived of many seats it held in 1945 - among them Bexley, where Edward Heath scraped in by just 133 votes.
He did not remain on the backbenches for long. After Churchill's victory in 1951, he rose rapidly through the whips office, becoming deputy chief whip in 1952 and chief whip under Eden in December 1955.
After Harold Macmillan secured a Tory hat trick at the polls in October 1959, Mr Heath was appointed minister of labour, and lord privy seal in 1960.
During his three years in that post, he became the centre of public attention as he doggedly tried to negotiate terms for Britain's entry into the Common Market, despite obstruction by Gaullist France.
His rise through the cabinet continued apace under the administration of Alec Douglas-Home - later Lord Home - who created a special post for him in October 1963, secretary of state for industry, trade and regional development, and president of the Board of Trade.
But time was running out for the Tories - and Alec Douglas-Home - who were turned out of office by Harold Wilson's Labour Party in October 1964. Sir Alec went as Conservative leader the following year. Mr Heath's hour had come.
The Tories scrapped their traditional "magic circle" method of picking their leader and the parliamentary party voted in Mr Heath - the loser, Reginald Maudling, becoming his deputy.
Soon the Wilson government was running into financial problems, culminating in the "pound in your pocket" devaluation of sterling.
The Tories flourished again, but Mr Heath, seen by many as remote and aloof, often trailed in the opinion pollsters' personality charts.
In 1968 he sacked Enoch Powell from the shadow cabinet after the so-called "rivers of blood" speech which provoked a national outcry. Heath was so outraged by this speech that he never again spoke to Powell.
By 1970, Labour appeared to have regained the initiative and pundits were writing Mr Heath's political obituary as the June election campaign saw him apparently outpointed by Mr Wilson at the hustings.
This only added impact to the surprise of his 30-seat victory at the polls - the grammar school boy from Broadstairs moved into Number 10 with his grand piano. It was the high point of a political life over which the shadows of failure were soon to lengthen.
While still Leader of the Opposition, he had mapped out a tough, uncompromising blueprint - some would now ironically say "Thatcherite" - at a conference in Selsdon.
Tough on union anarchy, tough on cash aid for "lame duck" industries, tough on law and order, it made an impact on the strike-weary voters.
Mr Heath introduced the Industrial Relations Act and its attendant court, setting himself on collision course with the unions.
Output sagged as strikes intensified. At the election he had been misquoted as pledging to cut prices "at a stroke" - now this was hurled back at him by his political enemies. His firm line against propping up ailing industries suffered a body blow when ministers had to backtrack as Upper Clyde Shipbuilders foundered. The nationalisation of Rolls-Royce was another humiliation for Selsdon Man.
But while Mr Heath's industrial policies were increasingly becoming bogged down in confrontation, his determined efforts to take Britain into the European Community were rewarded with a big Commons majority - helped by Labour rebels - in favour of the principle of joining.
On January 22nd, 1972, he signed the treaty of accession in Brussels but the elaborate ceremony was marred when a protester threw ink over him.
Meanwhile at home, bitter relations with the TUC boiled up into a statutory wage freeze in 1972 - a three-stage prices and incomes policy which enraged the Opposition and dismayed many of his own supporters.
Confrontation between the Government and the miners plunged the nation into a three-day week as energy-starved industry tried to keep going. Candles were rationed in some shops as blackouts hit homes.
Mr Heath had had enough. Despite doubts among some of his colleagues, he decided on an early General Election in February 1974, asking what he believed would be a winning question of the electorate: "Who governs Britain?" Voters delivered an ambiguous answer and a hung parliament. After desperate attempts to do a deal with Jeremy Thorpe's Liberals, Mr Heath and his piano quit Downing Street, never to return.
The following year, Mrs Thatcher wrested the leadership of the party from him in a ballot of Conservative MPs and he went to the backbenches, refusing to serve under her.
In and out of the Commons he kept up a sometimes-ferocious attack on her policies. But many of his critics saw it as more a personal vendetta against the prime minister rather than an objective critique.
Outside politics, Mr Heath distinguished himself both as a musician and an international class yachtsman.
Sir Edward was taken ill with a pulmonary embolism while on holiday in Australia two years ago. He was flown back to London but he never fully recovered from this health setback, and was rarely seen in public.