[3] An atheist[4] and a staunch republican,[5] he reluctantly accepted a life peerage when he retired from the House of Commons and was an active working peer until his death 16 years later.
[6] After training as a teacher at Bede College, Durham University,[6] he was not called up for military service during World War II, because teaching was a reserved occupation.
In the 1950s he studied at St Peter's College, Oxford,[8] where he was awarded a diploma in public and social administration with distinction[9] and won a Fulbright Scholarship to Harvard[10] in his second year (1954), becoming a friend of the future Senator Ted Kennedy.
[12] Manny Shinwell, the then 85-year-old veteran Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for the Easington constituency, announced in 1969 that he would not contest the next general election.
At the 1970 general election in which Harold Wilson's Labour government was defeated, Dormand was returned to the House of Commons with a barely reduced 79.8% share of the vote.
[3] In February 1972 he called for employment for miners who had been made redundant, and became Secretary of the Parliamentary Labour Party's Northern Group in 1973.
[11] In 1974 he and fellow Labour MP Willie Hamilton took the required oath declaring their allegiance to the Queen, then admitted that they had not meant it.
[19] The Home Secretary Merlyn Rees had urged Callaghan to appoint Dormand as Chief Whip rather than Michael Cocks.
[3] The role of the pairing whip remained a crucial one as the government's slim majority turned to a minority through defeats at by-elections, and Dormand was credited with a central role in helping the government stay in office,[8] telling Wilson that he was too "bloody knackered at the end of the day" to record the events surrounding the late-night votes.
[12] In January 1978 Dormand was named in a report by the Serjeant-at-Arms as having assisted in blocking one of the Division lobbies in an attempt to prevent a vote on part of the Government's legislation to devolve power to Scotland.
In November 1982, amidst rumours that a majority of Labour MPs wanted to replace party leader Michael Foot, Dormand gave a radio interview insisting that "I have absolutely no doubt whatever that the vast majority think that Michael Foot is the man for the job at the moment, and will take us into the next general election".
[27] After the 1983 general election, Dormand played a key role in the accession to the Speakership of Bernard Weatherill, seconding his nomination for the post.
[28] In July 1983 he worked with his Conservative opposite number Edward du Cann (Chairman of the 1922 Committee) to agree an increase in MPs' pay over that which the Government proposed.
In the 1970s he had campaigned successfully for the establishment of a parliamentary gym,[2] continued playing cricket and rugby until the age of 63, and cycled from the House of Commons to his flat near Millbank.
[5] The then Leader of the House of Commons, John Biffen, recounted how Dormand would "swathe himself in luminous strips" before setting off,[30] and although he abandoned the bicycle in 1987, deterred by London's heavy traffic, he took up walking instead.
[7] After his death, Michael Turnbull, the former Bishop of Durham, wrote in The Times of how Dormand had pursued this and other causes "without prejudice" and with "a warm affection for others".
[10] His last contribution to the House of Lords debates was on 19 November 2003, when he criticised the situation of "having to borrow money from the state to undertake a degree course" as "a considerable deterrent to poorer families".
[3] Tony Blair described him as "a life-long servant of the Labour Party";[8] When asked by a journalist to choose his own epitaph, the answer had been "he was a canny lad.