I’ve divided my time between Tottenham and central Cardiff (where my partner lives) for over 25 years and when the first lockdown was announced in March 2020 I was in Wales and pending further changes to restrictions spend more time here than I previously did in 2021.
Hence in the week of the 73rd birthday of the NHS I was able to take the ten minutes or so walk from the house to pay tribute to the founder of the NHS Nye Bevan who died 61 years ago in 1960.
There is a statue of Nye at the end of Queen St, one of the main Cardiff shopping streets (think Oxford St but pedestrianised for many decades). Nye’s statue looks out over Cardiff castle.
Nye’s statue looked as it if had been cleaned for the anniversary, free of its usual decorations (think seagulls).
As a labour historian (albeit Nye is not my period) I’ve read a good deal about Bevan. He’s never struck me as being always the easiest person to get on with and when you consider that battle he had to bring the NHS into being in 1948 that is just as well. He also had a very clear opinion of the Tories who opposed its introduction.
Even so Tony Benn described him in his diary (7th February 1951) as ‘open, honest, good-humoured and devastating.
Since the fall of Edward Colston in Bristol there has been much discussion about which statues should come down and which should go up.
There are though some statues that must never be toppled, and Nye’s is one.
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