Outside Downing Street, as the new Prime Minister made his way through the crowds, shaking hands and hugging supporters, one of the most important political figures in Andy Burnham’s life was missing – and one woman hung on longest, almost refusing to let him go.Burnham’s dad Roy, an engineer who taught him as a child about how Margaret Thatcher had decimated Liverpool, was not there at the most important moment of his son’s life because he has dementia. Speaking movingly about Roy, Burnham has said that because of his illness, his dad won’t know that his son has become Prime Minister. But he added: “It’s a family achievement … although he doesn’t know it, it still makes me feel that we’ve kind of done something together.”Outside that famous black front door, Eileen Burnham’s arms were wrapped firmly around her son, hugging him as if the rest of the world wasn’t there. For Andy Burnham’s wife Marie-France Van Heel, however, the whole event will have been wildly out of her comfort zone – however immensely proud she is of the husband she met back when she was known as “the coolest girl in Fitzwilliam College”.Marie-France – who Burnham calls Frankie – is not going to be a classic political wife. A highly intelligent, warm, stylish, funny woman who speaks three languages, she has always kept herself separate from his job as Mayor of Greater Manchester. She didn’t join him on stage after his victory speech as new Labour leader, and stood back in Makerfield, hidden behind oversized sunglasses. And – unless she undergoes a personality and morality transplant – she will not be ordering £2,260 of ‘gold wallpaper’ from Lulu Lytle or any and £500 table cloths any time soon – not least because she may not actually live very much in the goldfish bowl of Downing Street at all.‌Marie-France has the kind of perspective on life that only deep family tragedy and facing a potential cancer diagnosis can bring. Her sister Claire died of breast cancer at the age of just 39. In 2010, Marie-France underwent a double mastectomy – after a genetic test showed she could be at risk of the same disease.The Burnhams’ experience of the NHS during Claire’s illness and Marie-France’s mastectomy – which came as Andy fought a leadership election – shaped how the Prime Minister sees the NHS. While his gran’s – and now his dad’s – experience of social care, has shaped his ambition for a ‘National Care Service’. His cleaner grandma, Kitty Murray, died in 2002 after having spent her £35,000 life savings on care – and ending up in a home where her wedding ring was stolen. Mum Eileen told him then: “If you get elected, bloody well do something!”Born in January 1970, Marie-France van Heel grew up in the Netherlands and Belgium before moving to the UK and going to Cambridge University, and works in marketing and strategy. She is the chief marketing officer at Iduna Infrastructure, a firm which owns large parts of Manchester’s electric vehicle charging network – meaning her husband had to exempt himself from EV network decisions while Mayor.‌Since her sister’s death, Marie-France has taken part in Cancer Research UK’s Race for Life many times, and has many other charitable interests. As well as having been involved with charities from Marie Curie, Great Ormond Street, and The Alzheimer’s Society, she is on the board of trustees for Plan International UK.When the couple were first dating, in 1992 – having agreed it with her future husband – Van Heel appeared on an episode of Blind Date where she chose ‘Will from Surrey’ to be her date on a holiday to Gibraltar. It’s fair to say they did not hit it off – perhaps unsurprisingly given Will from Surrey went on to work for the Conservative Party. Burnham has said he watched the programme from behind the sofa.When Andy Burnham was running for Labour leader in 2015, the Cambridge English graduate spoke at a literary event about one of his favourite short stories – the Election for Beadle by Charles Dickens, which pokes fun at corrupt parish elections. One member of the audience seemed determined to heckle him. After shouting out “don’t embarrass me”, when Burnham was asked if he himself wrote poetry (he admitted he did), the same woman raised her hand during the Q&A afterwards.‌“You’re not allowed to ask a question,” Burnham joked. Marie-France replied: “I was just going to ask when you’re next home?”Her home now is at least theoretically Downing Street. One issue with taking up residence, may be her beloved rescue dog Axel, who something of a handful, and may not cohabit well with Larry the Cat. However they choose to run their lives as Prime Minister and ‘First Lady’, one thing the Burnhams do exceptionally well, is ‘human’ – which in an era when politics could not have grown more distant from the people, is more important than it sounds.It’s easy to imagine that moments after that important speech outside, as her husband awaited the parade of shadow cabinet hopefuls, Marie-France was back at her laptop on a zoom call, while Eileen put some bacon for one of her favourite butties. In 2015, Eileen, a former GP receptionist, whose dad drove a lorry for Tate & Lyle, and used to cry watching Boys from the Blackstuff, told the Daily Mirror why her son would make a good Prime Minister.“He will change things, because he really cares,” Evertonian Eileen said. “When I hear people talking rubbish about him I get upset. They just don’t know our Andy.”‌