Summary
In his time, Aneurin Bevan was, according to one biographer, "the most colourful and controversial, most loved and most loathed political personality in Britain".
The founding father of the NHS is the choice of Lord Kinnock, the former leader of the Labour Party who, like Bevan, grew up in Tredegar, in the heart of the Welsh coalfields, where he met his hero many times.
Kinnock regards Bevan as a hero on a level with Nelson Mandela and believes it was Nye alone who had the force of personality and political will necessary to get the Health Service established after the war. But the presenter Matthew Parris and his other studio guest, Bevan's biographer, John Campbell are more sceptical. Campbell goes so far as to argue that, the achievement of the NHS not withstanding, Nye Bevan's life was essentially a failure because, in his commitment to socialism, he misread the trend of history so completely. Now, with the NHS facing radical reform, this programme captures some of the passion and debate that surrounded its inception and provides personal insights into the life and character of the man responsible for its creation.
The producer is Isobel Eaton.
Future subjects in the series include Barry Cryer on JB Priestley.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
| 0:04.7 | My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds. |
| 0:08.5 | As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices. |
| 0:18.0 | What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars, |
| 0:24.6 | poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples. |
| 0:29.7 | If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds. |
| 0:36.0 | Thank you for downloading this great lives podcast from BBC Radio 4. |
| 0:41.0 | For more information and details of other podcasts just visit BBC.co. |
| 0:44.9 | UK slash Radio 4. |
| 0:48.0 | Hello and welcome to great lives. |
| 0:50.4 | My guest today is the former leader of the Labour Party, Neil Kinnock, now Lord Kinnock of Bedwellty. |
| 0:55.8 | No need, I think, for a potted biography. Lord Kinnock, there are some close connections between your own life and the life of the man you've chosen today. |
| 1:05.3 | Tell us who is your great life and why. |
| 1:08.2 | My great life is an adven and indeed he remains my greatest hero. |
| 1:14.0 | I'm from the same town, indeed the same ward in the same town as Bevan, |
| 1:19.0 | but obviously he was in his mid-40s when I was born and so all connections end there except for |
| 1:27.3 | our shared politics because Bevan was born in the late 1890s. He was brought up in conditions of severe poverty. |
| 1:37.6 | He was made to leave school at 13, he was a coal miner at 14, he was in the most literal sense self-educated and |
| 1:48.0 | richly educated at that and he was an adventure of politics and a great constructor of politics. I was born in the |
| 1:59.1 | lap of luxury, certainly working class. In a house that he built as it was. |
| 2:03.0 | I was born in a different house. |
| 2:05.0 | I was born in rooms that my parents rented and then we lived in a slum. |
... |
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