Thanks to all the amazing NHS staff on the 72nd birthday of an amazing organisation, the National Health Service, and a great idea.
I shall be out on the doorstep with family at 5pm on Sunday 5th July 2020 to join the national NHS Birthday clap, the last thank you clap of the 2020 Coronavirus epidemic.
To celebrate the NHS’ Birthday I have tracked down a few of my tiny medical figures.
These figures are from left to right:
54mm hollowcast lead Crescent Nurse and Britain’s seated aged female villager No. 556 (1919- postwar, oddly repainted by somebody sometime.)
Playmobil nurse – she was given to me as a good luck charm by friends when I was undergoing a serious operation by the NHS about ten years ago.
Smaller scale 46mm lead hollowcast WW1 looking nurse (as arrived with serious damage) Britain’s 1905-35 set 137 The Army Medical Service (54mm)
54mm plastic nurse from the Britain’s Super Deetail 1983 short lived Hospital range.
Limited edition 54mm pre-painted Corgi Forward March range Florence NightingaleNot forgetting the Nightingale Hospital lady Florence herself and Mary Seacole from previous FEMbruary blogposts
https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2018/03/08/mary-seacole-and-the-crimean-war/
Not all of my medical figures are accessible for the photograph, and one of the lead pre-war Johilco nurse figures needs some radical repair to replace a head in the next few weeks.
Another figure worthy of repair. Prewar issue Johilco nurse.
Happy Birthday NHS and thanks to all their staff, past and present.
Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN (or late 1960s NHS baby of TIN?), 5 July 2020
B.P.S Blog Post Script
As an NHS baby myself, I wondered who the first NHS baby was born on 5th July 1948? Named after the Minister of Health Aneurin Bevan, the answer is Aneira Thomas, who along with her sisters, went to work as an NHS nurse herself. Happy birthday Aneira!
“I feel passionate about the preservation of this fantastic service, which provides support from the cradle to the grave, for every person in Great Britain. It means equality for all. As Aneurin Bevan said, ‘The National Health Service will stay as long as there are folk to fight for it.’ The NHS is our jewel in the crown, and it’s our duty to not let it slip away.”
Aneira Thomas, 2017
BBC News Interview https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/health-44663249/nhs-at-70-aneira-thomas-the-first-nhs-baby
Here is a link to an interview blog piece from 2017:
https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/about-us/whos-who/aneira-thomas
https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/blog/2017/09/growing-nhs-born-5-july-1948
Man of Tin blog 