‘His robustness had a dignity to it’: readers’ encounters with John Prescott

John Prescott in 2007. ‘He didn’t seem to have that sense of importance that many [politicians] do.’ Photograph: Rui Viera/PA

Tributes have been pouring in for John Prescott, the deputy prime minister from 1997 to 2007, who has died aged 86.

The son of a railway signalman, Prescott was born in Prestatyn, Wales, in 1938 and left school at 15 to work as a trainee chef and then as a steward on the Cunard Line before entering politics.