NYE BEVAN was ultimately responsible for the establishing the NHS in 1948. But the Tredegar politician and MP for Ebbw Vale, who became minister for health and housing in 1945, had an ideal model on which to base his new health service, which has been described as “the most far-reaching piece of social legislation in British history.”

That model was the local community self-help scheme run by the Tredegar Workmen’s Medical Aid Society on which Bevan had served as a committee member in the 1920s.

When he created the NHS, Bevan said, “All I am doing is extending to the entire population of Britain the benefits we had in Tredegar for a generation or more. We are going to ‘Tredegar-ise’ you.”

The Tredegar Medical Aid Society was formed around 1890 and was widely regarded as one of the best of its kind. Under this local health service almost all of the town’s residents were covered by the scheme through subscriptions, which entitled members and their dependants to the most comprehensive and the best medical, surgical and dental services in the country, according to need and free at point of care.

The plaque outside 10 The Circle, in Tredegar, reads: “These were the offices of a mutual society (1890) formed by miners and ironworkers of the Tredegar Iron and Coal Co.” This building will be reopened this year after being refurbished back to its former glory by the the Coalfields Regeneration Trust who purchased the building in recognition of its huge importance to the history of Tredegar and the formation of the NHS.

Tredegar’s Medical Aid Society had emerged from the Health and Education Fund established in the town around 1871. This had been set up with representatives of workers and the management of the Tredegar iron and coal companies, which later merged. The society was one of a number of community health schemes set up during the 19th century, especially in the industrialised south Wales valleys.

So when we talk about the NHS, what has been forgotten, as demonstrated above, is that it was a model created by working-class people across the whole of Britain. Tredegar was one of thousands that were created by the workers to collectively look after one another — socialist values creating a socialist model that the country replicated in 1948.

Bevan’s values on not just health but also housing, nationalisation and many other topics were all borne out of his years of growing up in the valleys of Wales — and then reinforced as he travelled the working-class communities of Britain.

To this end the town of Tredegar holds a festival annually, on the first Sunday in July, to celebrate and remember all things Bevan — as the great man was so much more than the NHS, along with the history of others who have represented our socialist movement from south Wales and continue to do so

On the Thursday and Friday prior to Bevan Day on the Sunday, they hold a radical history school which pulls together the struggles of the working class from the 1831 Merthyr Rising, the Chartist’s though to the era that Bevan grew up in, that shaped him into the great politician that he became.

On the Saturday they hold two events in Tredegar, the first being a family day, 10am til 4pm at Park Bryn Bach. Cymru TUC and Unite sponsor the event so that union members can use the facilities for free including paddle boarding, climbing, caving and more — and the second is a free music event from 2pm to 10pm which is held at Bedwellty House and Park where local bands play.

On the Sunday the main event is held with a banner parade where the organiser’s encourage those attending to bring along all the old lodge and chapel banners which would have been around when Bevan was growing up and when he worked for the mining unions prior to becoming a councillor.

The parade starts from Charles Street at the very spot where Bevan’s childhood home was and winds through the streets of Tredegar to the Bedwellty Park where the great man would have made orations from the bandstand and where politicians and union figures of today will make speeches about his legacy to not just Tredegar or south Wales but to Britain as a whole.