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A survey earlier this year identified David Trimble, joint Nobel prize winner, as the most-talked-about Irishman in the British and Irish press.

Since becoming leader of the Ulster Unionist Party four years ago, he has done his fair share of talking too. It is just as well then that his academic and legal background has given him the debating and intellectual skills to do it.

Born 54 years ago in Bangor, County Down, he was educated at the local grammar school, before studying law at Queen's University, Belfast.

Although he was there at the height of political activism, he concentrated on his work, graduating with a first-class degree, and stayed on at Queen's to lecture. There he met his second wife, Daphne, one of his students, with whom he has four children.

He was in his late twenties before he became involved in hardline unionism, joining William Craig's Ulster Vanguard movement, which openly advocated violence.

Trimble said he would personally draw the line at violence and terrorism, but said a certain amount may be inescapable in a campaign involving demonstrations.

He was elected a Vanguard Unionist Party member of Merlyn Rees's Convention in 1975 and joined the official Ulster Unionist Party two years later.

But it was 1990 before he became a Westminster MP - for Upper Bann - and it was another five years before he came to public prominence, standing at the barricades of Drumcree with Orangemen determined to exercise their right to march the traditional route.

Soon afterwards Jim Molyneaux stepped down as Ulster Unionist leader and Trimble beat the former favourite, John Taylor, to become his successor.

Lauded by some as an articulate and forensic moderniser, he is also a "loner", who prefers private negotiation and the company of family and friends. He relaxes by reading and listening to opera and Elvis Presley.

People is edited by Harriet Swain and researched by Lynne Williams.

Send all information to Lynne Williams. The THES Admiral House 66-68 East Smithfield London E1 9XY. Tel 0171 782 3375.