Ernie Bevin, forgotten political giant

Great Lives

BBC

Documentary, History, Society & Culture

4.2 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 1 September 2020

⏱️ 28 minutes

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Summary

Ernie Bevin led an extraordinary life. Born in Somerset in 1881, his father is unknown and his mother died when he was eight. He left his job as a farm labourer age 11 and moved to Bristol, where he helped to found the Transport and General Worker's Union. He was Churchill's Labour minister in the wartime cabinet, and heavily involved in postwar reconstruction as Foreign secretary under Clement Attlee. He smoked too much and drank too much, and made a massive impression on everyone he met. So why is he not better known? Nominating him is Frances O'Grady, General Secretary of the TUC, Matthew Parris presents and also contributing is his biographer, Andrew Adonis, author of Ernest Bevin: Labour's Churchill.

The producer in Bristol is Miles Warde

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're about to listen to a BBC podcast and trust me you'll get there in a moment but if you're a comedy fan
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0:18.0	making people's days a bit better, helping them process, all manner of things.
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0:29.6	from satire to silly shocking to soothing profound to just general pratting about. So if you
0:36.2	fancy a laugh, find your next comedy at BBC Sounds.
0:41.6	BBC Sounds, Music Radio Podcasts. He had, said Winston Churchill, many of the strongest characteristics of the English race, his madliness, his common sense, his rough simplicity,
0:56.7	stirred in us and kind heart. We should add that he loved a drink, left school at 11 and founded the biggest trade union in the world.
1:05.9	Ernest Bevin, Ernie Bevin, is today's subject, a turn-up in a million he called himself.
1:12.2	Here he is, 1941 a member of Churchill's wartime
1:16.4	cabinet talking to the people of Bristol during the bombing raids of the Second World War. I want to say, I'm glad I am to see the marvelous and magnificent spirit of the old city
1:31.0	notwithstanding all that Hitler's done to it.
1:34.3	And to say to him, you can knock down our buildings, but you can't break our hearts.
1:50.0	You can just about make out the West Country Bur in that sturdy clip.
1:58.0	The Union he founded was the Transport and General Workers Union.
2:02.0	In the war, he was Churchill's Labour Minister and from 1945 he was
2:06.6	foreign minister under Clement Attley and instrumental in the founding of
2:10.8	NATO and the creation of the state of Israel.
2:14.0	Joining me to nominate this, and I think we may conclude overlooked giant,
	...

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