Gordon Brown suffered blindness scare while prime minister

Gordon Brown feared he would go blind while serving as prime minister, an extract from his memoir reveals.

The former PM, who was left blind in one eye after an accident during a rugby match as a teenager, said he suffered a sudden deterioration in his good eye while in Number 10.

"When I woke up in Downing Street one Monday in September (2009), I knew something was very wrong. My vision was foggy," he writes.

"That morning, I was to visit the City Academy in Hackney to speak about our education reform agenda.

"I kept the engagement, doing all I could to disguise the fact that I could see very little - discarding the prepared notes and speaking extemporaneously."

Writing in My Life, Our Time, Brown says he was driven to see a surgeon at the Moorfields Eye Hospital in London, who discovered the retina was torn in two places and “an operation was urgently needed.”

The surgeon “generously agreed to operate that Sunday," he writes.

On his way out, Brown requested Hector Chawla, an old friend who had treated him in the past, would be allowed to give a second opinion.

Brown saw Chawla the day the operation was due to take place.

"I was already prepared for surgery when he examined me and said he was convinced that the tears had not happened in the past few days. They were not new but longstanding," Brown writes.

"His advice was blunt. There was no point in operating unless the sight deteriorated further. Laser surgery in my case was more of a risk than it was worth."

Brown says he feels "lucky beyond words" that the retina did not deteriorate.

"Even if I felt fate had dealt me a hand I would not have chosen, my time in and out of hospital - and the fight for my eyesight -gave me a perspective that I still feel helps me to be more understanding of difficulties facing others in a far worse position than me," he writes.