Last picture of former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott shows him beaming alongside wife Pauline in birthday snap

THE last picture of former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott showed him beaming alongside his wife Pauline in a heartwarming birthday snap.

Prescott passed away peacefully in a care home yesterday after a battle with Alzheimer’s.

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He had been living in a care home following a stroke in 2019 and died “peacefully” surrounded by family.

The final snap, posted on his official X account, formerly Twitter, showed him happily smiling next to wife Pauline as she clutched a birthday cake.

Prescott married Pauline, 85, in 1961 and they had two children together – David and Jonathan.

In a statement announcing his death, Lord Prescott’s wife and two sons said: “We are deeply saddened to inform you that our beloved husband, father and grandfather, John Prescott, passed away peacefully yesterday at the age of 86.”

The family added: “John spent his life trying to improve the lives of others, fighting for social justice and protecting the environment.

“He did so from his time as a waiter on the cruise liners to becoming Britain’s longest serving deputy prime minister.

“John dearly loved his home of Hull and representing its people in Parliament for 40 years was his greatest honour.”

John first met his future wife Pauline “Tilly” Tilston at a bus stop in 1957 when home in Chester from his trip to New Zealand.

Pauline spoke about how she fell for John after meeting him under Chester’s Eastgate Clock in her autobiography Smile Though Your Heart is Breaking.

She wrote: “A voice at my elbow startled me. ‘Hi there, it’s Pauline, isn’t it?’. I turned and found myself face-to face with a man I knew only as the ex-boyfriend of Barbara, a girl I worked with. His name was John Prescott.”

She revealed the former Deputy Prime Minister, then a steward on the Cunard and White Star shipping lines, was funny if not always a great romantic.

In the summer of 1959, John told her he was taking her for a meal at the Patten Arms hotel and restaurant in Warrington where he worked as a commis chef.

She knew he was going to pop the question but it was en route, in the unusual setting of a train toilet, that the secretly “shy” Prescott decided to propose rather risk embarrassment in front of an audience.

After a courtship that involved a lot of dancing at jazz clubs, the pair married in 1961, despite his brother Ray losing the rings on the day.

Prescott served as Deputy PM from 1997 to 2007 as a member of the Labour Party.

He was a key New Labour power broker who often managed the tense relationship between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

Paying tribute, ex-PM Blair said: “I am devastated by John’s passing. He was one of the most talented people I ever encountered in politics.”

Fiery Prescott was first elected MP for Kingston upon Hull East in 1970 – holding the seat for almost 40 years.

He first joined the shadow cabinet in 1983 with the transport brief, before quickly rising through Labour ranks.

As Deputy PM Prescott played a big role negotiating the 1997 Kyoto climate change agreement.

And he was widely seen as a working-class tribune who ensured Labour’s union backers went along with Blair’s centrist reforms.

But he remains most famous for punching a protester who threw an egg at him during a rally in 2001.

The politician later joked about the incident quipping: “There was only one punch.

“Tony Blair rang me and he said ‘Are you OK?’ and I said ‘Yes’, and he said ‘Well, what happened?’.

“I said ‘I was just carrying out your orders. You told us to connect with the electorate, so I did’.”

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