Swindon in the Past Lane

Helen Shapiro knew a thing or two about walking. Today I joined Andy Binks from the Swindon Society as he led a group from the Swindon Health Walks on a guided tour of the Railway Village. The Walking for Health initiative aims to improve your general well being; help reduce your risk of developing serious health conditions; lift your mood and introduce you to new people. Andy and I had a great time and here are the photographs to prove it. Andy assembles the troops Walking along the backsies - or what do you call them? In Reading Street Andy tells the story of a serious case of overcrowding The Mechanics' Institute Bristol Street St Mark's Church The GWR Park Park House Taunton Street and the home of Jim Hurst, king of all engine drivers the old Medical Fund Hospital Milton Road Baths and the Medical Fund Hospital provided a blue print for Aneurin Bevan's National Health Serv...

In 1948 Aneurin Bevan, Labour's Minister of Health, rolled out the revolutionary National Health Service, a cradle to grave safety net of state health and welfare care. Something GWR employees at Swindon had enjoyed for over 100 years. The World War II Coalition government had debated the whys and wherefores of creating a National Health Service but it was the radical Welsh MP Aneurin Bevan who masterminded the plan having been inspired, it has been said, by the GWR Medical Fund at Swindon. He had urged members of Clement Attlee's post war Cabinet to visit the town and see just how an employee's contributory scheme could, and did work. "There it was," Bevan is reported as saying, "A complete health service, all we had to do was to expand it to embrace the whole country." Daniel Gooch, Locomotive Superintendent at the railway works is acknowledged as being the initiator of the GWR Medical Fund. As men were dismissed or put on short time workin...