Labour's two great political rivals from the 1980s – Tony Benn and Denis Healey – enjoyed a reconciliation when Benn came to see Healey to help advise him on how to mourn the loss of his wife, Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, has recalled.
Three years ago, Balls visited Healey, Labour's longest-surviving chancellor, to seek his advice soon after being appointed shadow chancellor. He came away struck by the way the party had collapsed into civil war after the election defeat of 1979 – and also by the way the two titans of that clash turned to each other at a time of great personal pain.
Both Benn and Healey were blessed with long, happy marriages to highly independent women, and felt their loss profoundly. Edna Healey, described by Denis Healey as his better half, died in July 2010, and Caroline Benn 10 years earlier from cancer in November 2000. In an epic political struggle, the two men had fought for the deputy leadership in 1981.
Balls visited Healey in his home in Sussex, along with the Observer journalist Bill Keegan, and had prepared for the visit by reading the Benn diaries for the early 80s, a time when Balls was still in school.
He said: "The very first thing Denis did in the manner of that generation of politician, was to offer us a pre-lunch drink. I asked him about the battle with Tony Benn, and he explained they had met and talked about loss, relationships, and their lives. He spoke with such warmth about Tony, and the support he had given him with his personal loss.
"The nature of politics is that there can be periods when people really disagree, and yet for Labour politicians and human beings there can be bonds that can transcend even the most difficult times. I learned from Healey a lot about Benn's generosity, humanity, and his fellow feeling."
Benn recently recalled: "You can never replace someone you have lost , but you decorate the gap with happy memories. Immortality is what you leave for your children."
His very last words to his wife, he recalled to Healey, were: "'We are all here. If you want to go now, you can,' and a few seconds later she stopped breathing."
Balls said: "As contemporary Labour politicians, we have all tried to learn lessons from that period of fissures and divisions that had profound long-term consequences for party. Yet for Dennis, the humanity, warmth and generosity of Tony Benn as a friend was all that he wanted to recall.
"Our generation has overtly tried to learn the lessons from Labour and Conservative divisions. No party has lost a majority and then won one back since 1920. We as party have an opportunity to achieve that now, not just due to the mistakes George Osborne has made, but also because Labour has not made the mistakes of Labour in 1951 and 1979, turning inwards.
"I think the Labour leadership election of 2010 was a very binding and not dividing period. Ed Miliband has been a unifying leader, and that is not an easy thing to do."
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