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Aneurin Bevan: life of the week
00:43:21
Dr Nye Davies explores the life of Aneurin Bevan, the Welsh coal miner-turned-politician who was behind Britain's National Health Service
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- [00:02]
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Lauren Good
Hello and welcome to Life of the Week, where leading historians delve into the lives of some of history's most intriguing and significant figures. From ancient Egyptian pharaohs and medieval warriors to daring 20th century spies. Aneurin Bevan's commitment to social justice led to the creation of the national health service in 1948, one of the most ambitious social reforms in British history. He was an MP who stuck to his principles in the face of serious opposition and was not without criticism in both his professional and personal life. Speaking to Lauren Good, Dr. Nye Davis from Cardiff University charts Bevan's journey from the coal fields of South Wales to to the corridors of Westminster.
- [02:55]
Lauren Good (Interviewer)
Hi Nai, thanks so much for coming on the History Extra podcast for our Life of the Week series. We're talking all about Aneuryn Bevan today. Could you please give a really brief overview of who he was before we Delve into his life.
- [03:09]
Dr. Nye Davis
Aneurin Bevan was an MP from Tradega in South Wales. He was born in 1897 in Tridega, grew up in the kind of trade union movement in South Wales. Member of the South Wales Miners Federation, became an MP in 1929. He spent much of the 1930s criticizing both the Labour Party and the Conservative government, or the National Government coalition government in the 1930s. But then when Labour was elected in 1945, became the minister of Health and Housing and was the founder of the National Health Service as well, and then spent more of the 1950s as the leader of the left wing in the Labour Party, but also went on to become Shadow Foreign Secretary and Deputy leader of the Labour Party as well.
- [03:59]
Lauren Good (Interviewer)
Let's start at the very beginning. You said there he was born in Tradega. What sort of family was he born into?
- [04:05]
Dr. Nye Davis
Bevan was born into quite a large family, so his parents, David and Phoebe, had 10 children. Sadly, four of them died in infancy. But he was born into a non conformist religious household. His father, David, was a Baptist, his mother a Methodist, and Bevan's father actually wrote poems for the local eisteddfod and won competitions in local Eisteddfod, the Welsh language cultural festival. So Bevan was born into a household that was very much tied up with the local industry. His father was a miner and at the age of 13 himself went down the mines at Tea Trist Colliery nearby. So Bevan was born into a family that was quite religious, although that. That influenced Bevan in different ways. Bevan wasn't religious himself, but I think that kind of upbringing inspired his sort of love of humanity and his kind of collectivist ethos. He wasn't taught Welsh by his father, which is a sticking point for some Welsh nationalists, but nevertheless, that love of poetry really was instilled in Bevan early on.
- [05:17]
Lauren Good (Interviewer)
So Bevan left school at 13. You said his father was a miner. What did the beginnings of his working life look like?
- [05:25]
Dr. Nye Davis
Well, Bevan actually started as a butcher's boy initially when he left school, but after a few months he went down the mines. Teacherist colliery with his first colliery. So from a very early age, Bevan had this experience of coal mining, which was the kind of major area of employment in that area, and that sort of instilled in Bevan that politics, that engagement with politics and engagement with the working class as well. There's a quote in Michael Foote's biography, Bevan saying, I never used to regard myself so much as a politician, as a projectile Discharge from the Welsh valleys. And I think that really sums up Bevan's early life as a miner. And once you experience that at such a young age, that really does instill something in you. Sort of a love of the working class, but also a desire to achieve power for the working class as well, to try and change society.
- [06:24]
Lauren Good (Interviewer)
What sort of involvement did he have in politics and trade unionism at this earlier point in his life?
- [06:30]
Dr. Nye Davis
Very early on, Bevan became involved in the trade union movement. He became a member of the South Wales Miners Federation, the Tradega branch of the South Wales Miners Federation. And he was very much a troublemaker for the Trudega Iron and Coal Company. There was a suggestion that Bevan's upbringing in the trade union movement saw him be in favour of direct action as a way to achieve power for the working class. Although his career suggests that he was involved in both the industrial and the political struggles in Triga and then later obviously going to Parliament. But again from a very early age Bevan was, he was highly influential in setting up the Triga Combine Lodge, which is amalgamation of the various different trade union lodges in Trudega. So very early on, Bevan wasn't just a trade union member, wasn't just a miner, he was a heavily active and involved trade union member, as I said, from a young age, been very influential in trying to shape the trade union movement in Tritiga to give it more power, to give it more collective strength.
- [07:38]
Lauren Good (Interviewer)
Now Bevan actually ended up at the Central Labour College in London. How did he get here after starting, starting his career as a miner?
- [07:48]
Dr. Nye Davis
Well, the Central Labour College was set up to try and give education to working class trade unionists and he'd garnered quite a reputation in the Trinity Labour Party and in the South Wales Miners Federation, so won a scholarship there. Bevan was very much self taught in a lot of his politics. He read widely, he borrowed so many books from the Tredega Worker Men's Library. Not just political texts but also novels and poetry. So this was a chance at more formal education for Bevan. And there's some suggestions that Bevan was not the best of students, that maybe he didn't attend all his classes and struggled with that more, as I said, more formal style of education. But it's clear to see, if you look at Bevan's political writing, that experience at the Central Labour College was so central to his outlook on the world. He would have learned about Marxism and Marxist theory and class politics and the history of the working class in Britain and you can see that throughout Bevan's career, that Marxism that Bevan was taught at the Central Labour College was quite influential. There's a review that Bevan wrote to the communist manifesto in 1921. So Bevan was only doing my maths here. Bevan was only 23, 24 years old when he wrote that review. But it gives a really good insight into Bevan's politics, about the class struggle, but also his critique of that Marxism that he learned at the Central Labour College, that he wasn't beholden to the ideas of Marx and of Engels and Lenin, but said their theories needed to be adapted to different times and also different circumstances as well. So that time at the Central Labour College was incredibly influential in explaining to Bevan what was happening in Trudega. I think Bevan was very much an activist, so he could see what was happening in his local area in South Wales, in Trudega. But he wrote about how that education really helped him to see what the underlying class struggle that was going on there. So he was very influential, As I said, despite suggestions that maybe Bevan wasn't the best of students.
- [10:10]
Lauren Good (Interviewer)
Am I right in saying that? As well as developing his perspective in politics, it was also at this point that he overcame his stammer, which would have been hugely influential in his career. We now know him as a fantastic orator.
- [10:24]
Dr. Nye Davis
Yeah, absolutely. I think there's different stories and different suggestions of how Bevan overcame his stammer, but I think they're probably a combination of the different methods. So Michael Foots, in his biography, talks about Bevan getting an elocution tutor at the Central Labour College and thus overcoming his stammer. But there was also a very influential figure in Triga, Walter Conway, who was the secretary of the Triga Medical Aid Society, who Bevan cited as being a huge influence on him and helping him to overcome his stammer. And there was different ways of doing this. Walter Conway said, you need to know what you're going to say. So Bevan learned this technique of, well, you practice your speeches, you practice what you're going to say, you make sure you know what. What you're going to say before you say it. And I think this was really helpful in terms of. It wasn't just the way Bevan spoke, but also the content of the speeches as well. I think those two were a very. A lethal combination, really. The way he was able to take down his opponent's arguments in a way that he would pinpoint the strongest part of an opponent's argument and break it down. From there. So he was very eloquent in terms of the way he spoke, but also in the content as well. And there's this great story about Bevan debating the House of Commons, calling the Conservative benches jocund. And the Conservative Party all started laughing at him. They hadn't heard this word jocund. And he said, oh, well, they don't even have a grasp of the English language. Because what Bevan used to do is if there was a certain word Bevan would stumble across, well, you'd look for a different word to use. So that helped him have such a wide vocabulary as well. So I think it's a mixture of the central Labour College, but also the influence of somebody like Walter Conway.
- [12:14]
Lauren Good (Interviewer)
Do you think this appreciation of language as well could have been fostered from an earlier stage? You said his dad was really interested in poetry. He submitted poems to the Eisteddfod. Do you think there is that at play as well?
- [12:28]
Dr. Nye Davis
Absolutely. Bevan had a love of reading, but he would often recite what he was reading as well. So there's stories about Bevan walking over the mountains around Tredeging, the Sahawi Valley, reciting poetry and reciting what he was reading. So, yeah, Bevan very much from an early age, he just had this real appetite for learning and reading and discovering new things. But the rambles as well, the walks over the hillside, the walks over the mountainside where he'd recite a lot of that stuff just gave him this great language, which is incredible for somebody who left school at the age of 13, struggled in school partly because of this stammer. It's a real testament to Bevan's desire to educate himself and to learn about the world around him.
- [13:22]
Lauren Good (Interviewer)
Once Bevan has been to the Labour College, we see him return to Wales. And I think there is this willingness as well to disrupt the status quo, I suppose. And we see this in his creation of the Query Club. What was this organization?
- [13:40]
Dr. Nye Davis
On the one hand, it was a sort of club of like minded socialists to get together to discuss theory and to discuss what, what they were reading. But it was about action really. So he set it up alongside Walter Conway, who I mentioned, who was secretary of the Tritiga Medical Aid Society. So the aim of the organisation was to try and do that, was to organize, to try and get socialists on the boards of as many groups as possible in Trudega. It was this idea that, well, in order to try and obtain power, you had to look at the different institutions, the different organizations, the Relief Board, the Tridega Medical Aid Society, all these different organizations where power lay in Trudega. So the Query Club had this element of discussion of theory and like minded individuals discussing socialist texts, but also it was about organization. I think Bevan's life can be summed up as a quest for power. And in Trudiga Bevan saw these different organizations and institutions that had power. I thought, well, the only way that we're going to get power is if we organize. So I think that's what the Query Club was really about was to try and get these like minded socialists to try and obtain power in every different institution possible.
- [15:02]
Lauren Good (Interviewer)
It's an incredible summary, this quest for power and it's not without struggle. We see him returning to Wales, he's got an education. You would assume at this point of his life that he would have an easier time of it perhaps, but this time of his life is quite difficult. What sort of struggles did he face?
- [15:23]
Dr. Nye Davis
Well, Bevan found it very difficult to find work once he came back from London. The Tridega Iron and Coal Company refused to employ him. So he spent many years unemployed. But he started during that time representing minors in disputes. So there was a suggestion at one point maybe he could go on to become a lawyer and represent working class people and represent miners in these disputes. But it was really difficult, difficult because Bevan claimed unemployment benefits when he couldn't find work. But that was stopped because the way it was means tested, we said, well, your sister is earning enough money, your father is receiving sickness benefits, so therefore you don't need benefits. So this was a real struggle for Bevan during this time and he has.
- [16:11]
Lauren Good (Interviewer)
A huge role to Play. During the 1926 General Strike. What was his involvement in this?
- [16:18]
Dr. Nye Davis
Well, he was involved in the formation of the Council of Action that distributed strike pay and resources to miners in Tritiga. So during this time again he had this growing reputation within the South Wales Miners Federation, but he was also a delegate from the South Wales Miners Federation to the Miners Federation of Great Britain. So he had this local reputation, but that was expanding to be a much more UK wide reputation within the trade union movement. And of course, the 1926 General Strike ultimately failed and Bevan did have some disagreements with colleagues over whether to find a negotiated settlement or to fight to the death almost, or to at least fight until you've kind of brought down the government. So Bevan did have different views to some of his colleagues in the trade union movement there in terms of trying to make sure the miners weren't crushed and to find that negotiated settlement. But again, it was one of those experiences that I think if you read his book In Place of fear in 1952, he speaks a lot about the General Strike of 1926 as being not just influential in terms of shaping his desire for power, but also in leading him towards the parliamentary route as well.
- [17:41]
Lauren Good (Interviewer)
As in terms of this parliamentary route. When did Bevan actually become an MP?
- [17:48]
Dr. Nye Davis
Bevan was elected in 1929, but during the 1920s, Bevan was heavily involved in politics as well. So in 1922, he was elected to the Trudega Urban District Council and then in 1928 was elected to Monmouthshire County Council and actually stayed on for a couple of years as a councillor in Monmouthshire after he won his parliamentary seat in 1929, he lost his seat in 1931. So Bevan had that experience of politics. And it wasn't one or the other for Bevan. It was both the political and the industrial wing that were really important. And reading his writing throughout his career, he sometimes struggled with that, as many in the Labour Party did. How do you combine action at the parliamentary level, which is at a national level, but also maintain the emphasis on the local level? But once bevan became an MP in 1929, he saw parliament as where the power lay. There's the story retold that Bevan was walking along with his father when he was young and he saw somebody who looked very important and said, who's that? He looks very important. And his father said, that's a really important man. He is on the Tritiga Urban District Council. So Bevan thought, okay, that's where power lies. I'll get on there. Realised power had gone elsewhere, so was elected to Monmouthshire County Council, realised power had gone away from there, so found Parliament as the source of power and actually felt that power was outside of Parliament, but in many instances in the economy. But Parliament. He described Parliament as a weapon in the class struggle. And that's really how he saw these institutions, these institutions such as Parliament. Parliament was old and it was outdated in terms of its rituals, but also in terms of the building and all of that, it was kind of quite symbolic of that for Bevan. But Bevan believed you could turn Parliament into a weapon that could be used for the working class.
- [19:58]
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Lauren Good (Interviewer)
See mintmobile.com now before we delve into his fronting of the creation of the NHS which he is most famous for, I'm interested in how he was viewed within Parliament with these ideas of reform. And you know, he does seem to be. You described him in his early life as a little bit of a troublemaker. What was his reputation as a political figure?
- [21:56]
Dr. Nye Davis
So Bevan carried on having that reputation really as a troublemaker, as an agitator. And there's this. I mean, I really wish there was footage of these debates from this time because I would have loved to have seen it. But one thing that always sticks in my mind reading about Bevan's life was in 1930, so he'd only been in Parliament a year or so, Bevan launched an attack on David Lloyd George. So of course David Lloyd George was the former Prime Minister. And without going into the nitty gritty of the bill that was being discussed, the quote from Bevan in this debate was accused Lloyd George of using all your parliamentary skill, all your rhetoric in an act of pure demagogy to expose the mining community of this country to another few years of misery. And the reports of that exchange say that Lloyd George appeared visibly shaken by this and he described it as a very bitter personal attack by Bevan. But straight away you could see Bevan wasn't afraid to take on the giants of the house. When we go into World War II, Bevan was described by Winston Churchill as a squalid nuisance because During World War II, Bevan was not willing to accept that you couldn't critique that you couldn't criticize the government. He was called a traitor. There's stories about excrement being sent to his house, attacking him, but he believed that if you're fighting for democratic liberties abroad, you fight for democratic liberties at home as well. So was very critical of the government and got that reputation as Churchill described him as a squalid nuisance. And it wasn't just the opposition. He was quite critical of his own colleagues as well, particularly when he became an MP in 1929. Of course the national government was established and he was very critical of Ramsay MacDonald and MacDonald's decision to go into national government and was urging for more action. Was urging for. Well, he actually co wrote and co signed Oswald Mosley's the Mosley Manifesto obviously didn't go on to would have abhorred Mosley's subsequent path towards fascism, but he co signed that because it was a document which called for intervention. So Bevan wrote a passage in a book by John Strachey, the Cummings Struggle for power in 1932, critiquing Labour's gradualism and saying, you need to be ambitious in terms of your interventions into the economy. So he was willing to criticize his own party. He was expelled from the party because he stood on the popular front platform with Liberals and communists and other organizations as well. So he gained this reputation as a firebrand quite early on. But obviously by 1945, Clement Attlee sees something in Bevan and appointed him as Minister of Health and Housing.
- [24:58]
Lauren Good (Interviewer)
Now when he enters this role, to us in Britain, the NHS is an idea that we're very used to. But it must have felt very novel during the time Bevan was suggesting a government funded healthcare system. Where did his inspiration for a free health system actually come from?
- [25:17]
Dr. Nye Davis
Well, there's lots of suggestions. The one suggestion, the most popular one, is that Bevan's experience as part of the Trudega Medical Aid Society was very influential. So this society was where miners would pay money into this society and would then be afforded healthcare treatment when they needed it. And that almost acts as a kind of proto NHS in a way, a small level. There's this quote, which I don't, with Bevan, there's lots of quotes that are attributed to him, but there's not evidence of him actually saying them. So there's a quote that Bevan said, we are going to trategarize you in reference to the rest of the country with the nhs. I don't think he actually said that. There isn't the evidence to suggest he did. But that's been the suggestion that Bevan was very much inspired by that medical aid society. And I think that's a big part of it. But at the same time, Bevan spoke to the society when establishing the NHS and essentially said, you've done your part, you've played your role, now it's time for the state to step in. Because what Bevan saw was a real discrepancy in health care across the country, that some places would have better health care than others. You'd have a mixture of voluntary hospitals and charities involved in healthcare, these medical aid societies. But Bevan thought, well, you try to make things as local as possible, really, to meet local needs. But Bevan was quite weary initially of local government control of National Health Service. He had a big debate with his colleague Herbert Morrison, who had experience of local government health in London, where Herbert Morrison wanted kind of local government control of healthcare. Bevan decided to nationalize the hospitals because Bevan said, well, it's a big burden to put on local governments free health care, particularly if you're trying to universalize healthcare as well. So when local governments have tight budgets, would really make healthcare difficult in different communities. So Bevan felt the state needs to step in here. So I think there was that influence there from not just the Tratega Medical aid Society, but Bevan's life and career. He saw the way that his father was treated and the sickness his father developed from being down the mines. He saw his comrades and his friends and his family suffering because they couldn't get health care or they couldn't get Adika adequate healthcare, particularly compared to richer people who could very easily afford healthcare. So he wanted to universalise that experience for people across the country, where it didn't matter where you were from, if you needed healthcare, you would receive that healthcare.
- [28:11]
Lauren Good (Interviewer)
Now, of course, he is in a huge position of power here. He's the Minister of Health. But it's one thing having these ideas and it's another thing making them a reality. And how did he actually set out to do this?
- [28:24]
Dr. Nye Davis
I think it was a combination of personality and perseverance. I think these two different elements were really important because Bevan drove through NHS reforms in the face of quite serious opposition. Some people suggest that, well, the wartime coalition established some sort of National Health Service. The Willink White Paper established the National Health Service. So Bevan actually some people tried to downplay his role in that. But I would argue that Bevan is one of the most successful wielders of institutional power that Britain has ever seen, because in order to try and get something like the NHS through, when the BMA was against the National Health Service, they didn't want to have salary doctors. The Conservative Party was against the nhs. Within his own party, the decision to nationalise the hospitals was a source of controversy. I mentioned Herbert Morrison's opposition to that and Herbert Morrison, very influential within the Labour Party. So Bevan really had to struggle for this, to get the NHS through. Charles Hill, the head of the bma, was quoted as describing Bevan as a complete and uncontrolled dictator. And he was called the Tito from Tonopandy, even though Tonopandy is not Tritiga. But anyway, so he negotiated, he negotiated with the bma, he negotiated with consultants, he negotiated with the doctors and allowed various things to stay within the NHS. Allowed GPs not to be salaried employees of the States. They were paid capitation fees by the state, pay beds were allowed in NHS hospitals still. So Bevan was quoted as saying that with the consultants, he had to stuff their mouths with gold, essentially to get his policies through. Now, I think looking at the legacy of this, which probably another discussion, there's some critique of that, that some of the original proposals that Bevan put into place has led to some of the problems that we see in the NHS today, particularly in that kind of private, public relationship. But Bevan was willing to negotiate and when it came down to the wire in terms of establishing the nhs, it looked like he wasn't going to get staff signing up to this and it was going to be a disaster. But come the day of the NHS being launched, the vast majority signed up to the nhs. So that sheer personality of being able to negotiate, but the perseverance as well was really important. And with those reforms or with the establishment of the nhs, Bevan only saw it as one step. It's really interesting looking at Bevan, interviews with Bevan, once the NHS is established. There's a really great interview with Bevan in Tribune, which is the left wing publication he was formerly the editor for and wrote a lot for either side of being an mp, where Bevan said, this is only the Start. This isn't the end goal here. The NHS needs to keep performing, the NHS needs to keep going further in terms of its ability to provide health care for the population. He talked about developing health centres in local areas, which he didn't achieve when he was Minister of Health and Housing. Which is why when it came to 1951 and to fund the Korean War, the Labour government introduced charges on teeth and spectacles. Bevan resigned from the government. He was Minister of Labour by that point. But Bevan saw this as anathema to the principles of the National Health Service and the goal to try and keep developing it and to keep moving it forward. But it was just one step in Bevan's overall ideas for how you change society.
- [32:26]
Lauren Good (Interviewer)
He strikes me as a man who's constantly pushing and also really not afraid to stand for what he believes in, even if that means him being on his own, I suppose.
- [32:38]
Dr. Nye Davis
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, one of the things that I always kind of have to remind myself talking about Bevan and the NHS and Bevan in power, was in his 31 year parliamentary career, Bevan was only in government for six of those years, which is astonishing, really, that he spent 25 years out of power. And the 1950s, I mean, we see it time and time again in the Labour Party, these internal disputes, but Bevan was seen as the leader of the left. He was a very reluctant leader. You mentioned Bevan was very much striking out on his own a lot of the time and he had his own kind of political philosophy which didn't always match up with his colleagues who were part of the Bevanite movement. But nevertheless, he didn't believe in dropping your principles. That is a common theme in the 1950s, where when the Labour Party under Attlee and then eventually under Hugh Gaitskill was being encouraged to try and tone down its commitment to public ownership. He says there's no difference between the parties if you drop that commitment to public ownership. And he was always urging. One of the phrase he used was urging the Labour Party to be the master of events and not the servant to events. You don't try to see where that kind of median voter is or try to appeal to certain voters because you think that's what they want to hear. You win people over to your case. And that very much evil went Bevan towards the later in the 1950s, started to reconcile almost, or try to moved a bit closer to Hugh Gateskill and tried to call for greater unity within the party even then. That unity that Bevan called for should not Be at the expense of dropping your principles.
- [34:25]
Lauren Good (Interviewer)
We've talked a lot about the nhs and you know, his position as a health minister, his position as an mp, but you also mentioned that he was Minister for Housing as well. What other reforms was he involved in in his political career?
- [34:41]
Dr. Nye Davis
The housing side of Bevan is quite interesting because I think Bevan is quite often unfairly criticised for the housing brief. There is the argument to be made that having. Well, the health and housing brief did split eventually, that you're trying to establish the NHS and you've got this other brief. But Bevan saw that as well. Of course, they're going to be linked in a ministry, because, as I said, the health service was just one part of Bevan's vision, and another part of Bevan's vision was creating a better society through better housing. So Bevan was criticized for not building as many houses as the target was. So when the Conservatives came into power after Bevan, they built more houses. But Bevan didn't want to just build any old housing. He wasn't focused on quantity, he was focused on quality as well, and making sure that most of those houses were council houses as well. So things like insisting on that housing had toilets indoors. There was opposition to that. There's people who thought, well, you've got to focus on quantity rather than quality and getting all these prefab houses up, which Labour did build during that time. But Bevan was very much. He was described by somebody as a Tory when it came to housing, because he wanted higher quality housing. But he said, well, why is that too good for the working class? Nothing is too good for the working class. People should be able to live comfortable lives if you get free health care. You can receive free health care when you need it, but you can live in a comfortable environment as well. So all these different elements of Bevan's politics were connected.
- [36:23]
Lauren Good (Interviewer)
There's so much to talk about with Bevan's career, but, you know, we're talking about his life as a whole, and that includes his personal life. Can we talk a bit about who Bevan married? How did he meet her?
- [36:38]
Dr. Nye Davis
So Jenny Lee, I think, was very influential on Bevan's life. I think Jenny Lee is often characterized as a being a negative influence on Bevan, almost that Jenny Lee was the devil on Bevan's shoulder, trying to encourage him to do his outbursts and when he was being really critical of the Labour Party. And Jenny Lee is often pinted as somebody who encouraged that. I think that's incredibly unfair. Jenny Lee was Really important to Bevan in terms of bouncing ideas off. And Jenny Lee, I mean, she said herself that she poured her life into Bevan because she saw Bevan as the savior for the left or the greatest hope for the Left. I talked about Bevan practicing his speeches and practicing and practicing and practicing. Jenny Lee would help him with that. She would help him with his speeches and what to say and the ideas, the bouncing of ideas off each other. Their life in Cheshire and the house was just open to the great and the good of the. The art world and the music and film and theater. They did enjoy the finer life. But again, the accusations of Bevan being a. A champagne socialist or a Bollinger Bolshevik, he said, well, nothing's too good for the working class, essentially. Why should we be denied these things as well? So I think they had a fascinating life and Jenny Lee herself is a fascinating character, obviously influential in establishing the Open University later in life. So I think that characterization of Jenny Lee has been quite unfair. But it was a real, almost a power couple. I think she admitted herself, she said that he was doing what I wanted done infinitely better than I could have done it.
- [38:28]
Lauren Good (Interviewer)
It's beautifully put, that idea of her pouring her life into Bevan. You mentioned their married life in Cheshire and Bevan's accusations of being a champagne socialist. Can we look more at what their life looked like outside of politics?
- [38:42]
Dr. Nye Davis
Bevan did enjoy the finer things in life. He did enjoy art, he did enjoy culture. So him and Jenny Lee would dine at fancy restaurants. Bevan was wining and dining with the opposition in the 1930s. He did become appreciative of this kind of finer life. But I think for them, these things shouldn't be denied to working class people. Bevan spent so many years down the pits in the darkness, so had an appreciation for all these various different things. And the thing I find really fascinating about Bevan's spending the time that I did doing my research on Bevan, I kind of went into it with the picture of Bevan as a firebrand and a materialist first and foremost. And it's all about the economy and it's kind of Marxist inspired and all of that. But his appreciation, love of culture, love of art, love of history, I think was so important to him. And it's there in his writings when he's quoting the Uruguayan philosopher Jose Enrique Rodo. It's a far cry from Karl Marx, but Bevan's reading work about the vulgarity of capitalism and he wants to live in a world which appreciates the Finer things in life. And that shouldn't be denied to the working class either.
- [40:05]
Lauren Good (Interviewer)
It was at his home in Cheshire with Jenny Lee that Bevan died. What was the cause of his death?
- [40:12]
Dr. Nye Davis
Eventually Bevan had cancer. There's suggestions that maybe this could have been as a long term because Bevan was. How old would he have been? 62, 63 when he died? So he wasn't very old at all. There's the suggestion that maybe it was an illness that developed from his time down the mines, which so many people who worked down the mines died at a young age because of these long term illnesses that developed. So that's a suggestion for maybe why the outpouring of grief after Bevan died, not just amongst his friends and his colleagues, but the people of Trudega. It always fascinates me. I always think about this. There was that play last year, the Michael Sheen play, written by Tim Price, brilliant play and I think, which captures a lot of all this stuff, even going back to the Bevan's Tridega days as well. And I was thinking to myself, there aren't many politicians, British politicians, that there would be a national theatre play about, which was very much a praiseworthy play. Margaret Thatcher is somebody, but with a play or a film or whatever it is about Margaret Thatcher, it's going to be divisive. Winston Churchill, I think, is another one. There's loads of films about, about Winston Churchill, but I was thinking to myself, is there a figure in British political history, apart from maybe those three, who has this sort of reverence people have for him? It's quite astonishing. So the kind of legacy of Bevan's death then? When he died, it wasn't just his friends or his political colleagues, it was his political opponents as well as who pay tribute to him. But the people of Trudega, the people of South Wales and I think the people of the uk. So it's very rare that you have this figure who I think he is divisive in some ways, but his legacy isn't as divisive. The nhs, I think, is one of the most important, well, the most important institution in Britain and in British history. And Bevan was the person who delivered that. So, yeah, it's quite a substantial legacy to leave behind despite only being in power for six years.
- [42:34]
Lauren Good
That was Nye Davis, a lecturer based in the School of Law and Politics at Cardiff University and a member of the Wales Governance Centre. He was speaking to Lauren Good. You can read more about Aneirinha Bevan and the history of the NHS on historyextra.com thanks for listening to today's Life of the Week. Be sure to join us again next time to learn about another fascinating figure from the past.
- [43:11]
Dr. Nye Davis
And Doug, here we have the Limu Imu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug. Uh, limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us?
- [43:29]
Maytag/Lowe's Advertiser
Cut the camera.
- [43:30]
Dr. Nye Davis
They see us. Only pay for what you need@libertymutual.com. liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty Savings Ferry. Unwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates. Excludes Massachusetts.