Nye Bevan
…Thank you for bringing me into this world. And thank you for keeping me in it.
Thank you for resetting all of my broken bones. And thank you for sewing me back together.
Thank you for operating on me when I needed fixing. And thank you for sending an ambulance when I couldn’t make it there by myself.
You have saved my life and patched me up more times than I care to remember. Without you, I would surely not be here.
Most of all, thank you for bringing my two daughters into this world. Thank you for taking care of them when they were sick and for vaccinating them from deadly diseases.
To all the nurses, doctors, GPs, clinicians, technicians, auxillary nurses, dentists, paramedics, ambulance technicians, call handlers, midwives, radiologists, cardiologists, pharmacists, oncologists, scientists, anaethetists, surgeons, psychiatrists, counsellors, psychotherapists, physicians, administrators, managers, secretaries, receptionists, cooks, housekeepers, porters, Nye Bevan, the Labour Party and all the other staff of our National Health Service who I have forgotten to mention –
Happy 70th Birthday!
And, thank you.
(Have yourself a slice of cake. But not too much. Don’t want you getting diabetes.)
David Milligan-Croft
Thereisnocavalry 
There’s a song I’ve been listening to and singing along to recently, popped up on shuffle this morning – ‘ I was born in the NHS, and I’ll die in the NHS’ made me think. Hadn’t really clicked before that my parents weren’t born in the nhs. Made it seem comparatively young to me.
Yes, never really thought about that. I wonder how much my granny had to pay to have my mum. Must ask her.