NHS at 75: Nye Bevan 'treated everyone with respect'

Hannah Harman Brown knew Mr Bevan because her father persuaded the former Labour health secretary to buy a farm in Chesham

A woman who befriended the late founder of the NHS says he treated "everybody with equal respect" as the institution marks its 75th anniversary.

Aneurin "Nye" Bevan, lived the latter years of his life in Chesham, Buckinghamshire, where he died in 1960.

Former Labour MP Mr Bevan was health secretary from 1945-1951 and spearheaded the creation of the NHS.

Hannah Harman Brown said "He was one of those people who treated everybody with equal respect."

Mrs Harman Brown met Mr Bevan in 1955 when her father, Labour party activist Tony Harman, persuaded him to buy a farm on the outskirts of Chesham.

A street in the town, Bevan Hill, was named in his honour.

She said: "He was very loving and I think we all loved him and we felt love back.

"Of all of the politicians that were around then, only Churchill came close to the kind of general knowledge about him and his existence…I don't think any other Labour politicians had the same kind of public awareness."

Aneurin Bevan meeting teenager Sylvia Beckingham - the first NHS patient being treated at a hospital in Manchester in 1948