Tredegar, Tannochbrae and Troglodytes

 

“It’s all connected up you know” (Minnie Rudman 1917-1996)

After a long drive home from Scotland, I needed to stretch the legs. I met an acquaintance by the bay, coincidentally of both Cymreig and Scottish heritage. We casually discussed a recent theatre production.  Nye dramatised Aneurin Bevan’s hard-fought campaign to establish the NHS, itself based on the voluntary hospitals model from Tredegar (Blaenau Gwent), 90 miles south from where we were chatting. We found we were both attuned to socialist connections with a large white house on the hill across the Glaslyn estuary from home. This was the final abode of philosopher and activist Betrand Russell, known, among many other things, for his influential letters to Kruschev and friendship with HG Wells. He had also been a friend of Raymond Postgate who we meet again below.

We were both of an age to recall the TV series Dr Finlay’s Casebook (1962-1971), set in the 1930s. The books had been written by Scottish author and doctor AJ Cronin, whose seminal novel The Citadel (1937) had an earlier, yet comparable, influence on the inception of the NHS to that of Bevan. While Bevan was born in Tredegar, Cronin had lived there too from 1924, working as Medical Inspector of Mines. 

The “Dr Finlay” theme tune is actually the introductory march from Trevor Duncan’s Little Suite (1959), but evokes the above associations more keenly for me now. It is one of those “Light Music Classics”, written for the masses rather than the elite. The start (“da/Da da da/Da da daa/Da diddle da da/Da diddle da da”) belies later tensions in the chromaticism and parallel seconds of the middle section (the “Trio”). A fanfare then heralds the start of a new era. Better times ahead. The music initially echoes the cosy and comical storylines, which curiously (has no-one else noticed?) have many parallels to a much later comedy series about three Irish priests and their housekeeper. But it quickly become more edgy, introducing themes such as cholera, poverty and sanitation. Most of Duncan’s oeuvre was incidental or “library” music, so any interpretation is in my imagination alone. As far as I know. 

Finlay and senior partner Cameron lived and worked with housekeeper Janet in a large house in fictional Tannochbrae. Arden House still exists in reality, on the slopes above Callander, Perthshire. Hardly mentioned to today's tourists, it was until recently a B&B. Walking up to the now empty house, I immediately replayed the above music in my head. Cronin would not have heard of ear-worms.

I don’t follow snooker, but noticed the recent announcement of the death of six-times world champion Ray Reardon, another son of Tredegar. The same week, the news informed us that caves have been found on the Moon. The hidden seam of connection probably only exists in the deeper pockets of my mind. I was immediately reminded of those erstwhile knitted inhabitants, The Clangers who, from 1969, lived below ground on a Moon-like orb. The creative force behind the TV programme was Oliver Postgate, whose father Raymond’s (above) influence I can see more clearly than ever. I’m not alone in this (see links). The Clangers depicted a post-industrial “world” in which everything was reused and recycled, particularly as they were bombarded by space junk. They shared their world with the benign Soup Dragon who subsisted on “green soup”: maybe signalling future environmental imperatives.  

As a footnote, my partner too was born in Tredegar, where her mother had gone into labour while on a bus. It all goes back to Tredegar, birthplace of the NHS, Linda and figuratively, Tannochbrae too. Neil Kinnock too, but that's another story. I really should go there one day. 

Links

Nye | National Theatre

AJ Cronin: novelist, GP, and visionary - PMC (nih.gov)

Dr Finlay's Casebook - background to the Radio series (archive.org)

music at the speed of light (cambriancrumbs.blogspot.com)

Next Left: Oliver Postgate and the Guild Socialist tradition

Recycling (cambriancrumbs.blogspot.com)