By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 12:07 AM on 12th May 2010
Quitting politics after nearly three years as PM and 27 years in the Commons opens up a wealth of possibilities for Gordon Brown to continue to strut the world stage.
Top of the list is speculation that he might take over as head of the International Monetary Fund next year. But that could only happen if Dominique Strauss-Kahn leaves the post to run for the French presidency.
And if he changes his mind about not wanting to go into having any more to do with business or politics.
The IMF helps stabilise exchange rates and encourages development in poor states, making many economists believe Mr Brown is a shoo-in for the Washington job. The post comes with a tax-free salary of £330,610, more than double his take-home pay as prime minister.
Mr Brown will surely also strike a deal to publish his memoirs - not least as a riposte to Tony Blair's forthcoming diaries which are expected to be critical of him. Of course, if he can't beat Mr Blair, he could join him - filling his boots in the same way.
Mr Blair has raked in £20million since leaving Downing Street in 2007 - accepting directorships and money-spinning speaking engagements. However Mr Brown is seen by many to lack the necessary Blair-like charisma.
And although countless banks and corporations would queue up to offer him lucrative directorships, Mr Brown has said: 'I don't want to do business or anything else', adding: 'Sarah and I may go off and do charity work'.
He may even return to academia. He has joked that his election to Parliament in 1983 interrupted a promising career as a politics lecturer in Glasgow.
He paid an emotional tribute to his wife Sarah as he bowed out of Downing Street.
With the eyes of the nation upon him he said: 'Above all, I want to thank Sarah for her unwavering support as well as her love, and for her own service to our country.'
And he movingly he added: 'I thank my sons John and Fraser for the love and joy they bring to our lives.
'And as I leave the second most important job I could ever hold, I cherish even more the first - as a husband and father.'
As he said 'thank you, and goodbye' no one doubted the sincerity of those words as they watched Mr Brown turn back to the door of No 10 from where the two boys joined the couple, posing for photographs before walking, all holding hands, down the street to cheers.
Normally John, six, and Fraser, three, are kept cocooned from the cameras and this is the first time they have been allowed to be pictured in Downing Street.
For Mr Brown, his wife and family have been a rock in a turbulent premiership that lasted just two years, ten months and 14 days.
It was at the 2008 Labour Conference where Sarah gave the speech considered at the time to have turned his premiership round, inviting the nation to see him as she saw him: ‘My husband, the leader of your party, your Prime Minister.’
But at same the time she treasured the family's privacy, never putting her children in the spotlight.
‘I need to protect myself and my family.’ she said. ‘I know there are things I could do that are shinier, more “tra-la-la”. But I don’t see that that’s good for me or my family. If I am under attack, then Gordon is hurt.’
As Sarah Macaulay, she had built up a highly successful PR consultancy. But she made a career out of supporting her husband.
It was a sign of Sarah's influence that many felt the notorious 'Bigotgate' incident would never have happened if she had been at her husband's side in Rochdale when he met pensioner Gillian Duffy.
The next day in Birmingham Sarah was firmly back in control, tightly clasping her husband's hand.
The couple first met briefly at a Labour event, but they did not speak at length until 1994 when they shared a flight from London to Scotland for the Scottish Labour Party conference. After this meeting the two began dating.
The relationship was kept secret until 1997, when the News of the World published a picture of them together in a restaurant in London. Allegedly, the scene was staged by spin doctor Charlie Whelan and had to be reshot when Brown failed to look suitably loving.
They were married in August 2000 in Brown's home town, North Queensferry, Fife. In 2001, she left her PR consultancy Hobsbawm Macaulay after finding out she was pregnant with her first child.
On 28 December 2001 she gave birth prematurely to a daughter, Jennifer Jane, who died when she was only 10 days old.
The bravery of the Browns through this heartbreaking ordeal gave the nation an insight to their strength as a couple.
With Sarah looking on, Mr Brown welled up with tears in a TV interview with Piers Morgan last February as he described the moment his baby daughter Jennifer Jane died in his arms.
He admitted he lost interest in life for a time after she died. In the most personal interview he has ever given, the Prime Minister talked about his 'modern love story' with his wife Sarah and the way they coped with the loss of their first child after just 11 days in January 2002.
He said: 'This is the happiest time of your life and then suddenly it becomes the most grief-stricken time of your life.
'It was such a pendulum swing. I couldn't listen to music. I really wasn't much interested in anything for a while.
'She would be nine this year and you think all the time of the first steps and the first words and the first time you go to school and it's just not been there.'
Mr Brown said that when Jennifer Jane was born in December 2001, seven weeks prematurely, he and Sarah were initially hopeful and doctors kept from them the possibility that she might die.
He said: 'It just gradually dawned on us that something was going wrong and she wasn't getting bigger.
'I could hold her hand and I could feel that she knew I was there and, and there was nothing that you could see that was, that was actually wrong but she just wasn't growing.
'After a week I turned to the doctor and I said, "She's not going to live, is she?" And he said, "No, I don't think so."And she was baptised and we were with her and I held her as she, as she died.'
Mr Brown said he and Sarah's relationship grew stronger. 'Sarah and I, we're, we're a modern love story. Our partnership is so strong possibly because these events we've had to respond to together. My admiration and respect and love for Sarah just grew and grew and grew.'
In 2002 Sarah founded charity Piggy Bank Kids, which began as a research fund to tackle complications in pregnancy, and has now expanded into a range of projects helping disadvantaged children.
In October 2003 she gave birth to John and then in 2006 she had James Fraser. In November of that year, Fraser was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis.
Of Fraser's cystic fibrosis. Mr Brown said the diagnosis was 'a real challenge' but he was optimistic about new treatment.
He said: 'We sometimes say well why, why, why, why us? You know, why did this happen to us? But I feel we've been pretty fortunate in life.'
Again the couple faced the adversity with a real fighting spirit. As Mr Brown prepares for his 'most important job' of being a father and a husband, it is obvious he has family that rate him as their number one priority too.
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