The couple, who share a son and two daughters, met at university, where van Heel was “much more high-flying” than Burnham, according to an interview the lawmaker gave in 2009.
“When my wife got pregnant, we actually hadn't planned to have children at that time because I felt stability was important,” Burnham said. “We got married in October 2000, when Jimmy [our eldest child] was eight months old, and I was in a difficult battle to win the nomination. It was horrendous, up and down the M6 [motorway] from London campaigning.”
The Burnham-van Heel family have laid strong roots in the north of England, where the now-Prime Minister served as mayor of Greater Manchester until last month, when he made a triumphant return to Westminster after winning the Makerfield by-election.
According to the BBC, she now serves as chief marketing officer at Iduna Infrastructure, a company which owns significant parts of Manchester's electric vehicle charging network.
Now, as he takes on the challenge of being the U.K.’s seventh Prime Minister in a decade, Burnham will come under a new spotlight. Here’s what to know about the person supporting him behind the scenes.
Burnham studied English and was in his second year when he bonded with van Heel, a Dutch-born peer.
When the candidates were asked what made them human, Burnham regaled a story of his wife appearing on the former hit romance show Blind Date in the early 90s after he gave her his blessing.
“In the early days, she was on Blind Date and she was the picker,” he said, according to The Spectator. “And to add insult to injury, she picked Will from Surrey, who ended up being the director of communications for the Conservative Party.”
Luckily for Burnham, van Heel and Harris failed to find a spark on their date and swiftly went their separate ways.
Burnham has had the support of his wife from the beginning of his political career
“I met him on my first day at university. Yes, with the long hair, the good looks, and monobrow,” van Heel recalled in a 2015 interview. When Burnham told her of his political aspirations, van Heel “left the room,” but they soon formed a burgeoning relationship.
“We talked it through and it was very much a team effort, a family effort. I wouldn’t put them through it if I wasn’t sure,” he said.
Van Heel’s family experience with cancer
It was during this role that he revealed the challenging personal experience he and his wife had faced.
Van Heel had undergone a pre-emptive double mastectomy after learning she carried the gene for breast cancer following the death of her sister Claire from the disease, and the diagnosis of both her mother Bea and other sister, Louise.
Van Heel has since participated in Cancer Research UK’s Race for Life event.
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