By what appears to be an amazing coincidence, AJ Cronin, known mostly nowadays for the Dr Finlay’s Casebook programmes, worked as a GP in Tredegar, Monmouthshire, in the early 1920s, at the same time as Aneurin Bevan, who was born there. It is almost inconceivable that they didn’t meet, although there is no evidence that they did. Bevan worked for the Tredegar Workmens’ Medical Aid Society in this traditional coal mining community and Cronin was particularly interested in the effects of coal dust exposure on miners’ lungs. Bevan was on his way to becoming the architect of the NHS as a Labour Health Minister, while Cronin’s career would take him to medical practice in London and on to a hugely successful career as an author. His first novel, Hatter’s Castle, was written when he was being treated with prolonged rest for a duodenal ulcer, and was published by Victor Gollancz Ltd in 1930 to immediate critical and public acclaim. He never practised again.
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