Evening star., 1949-12-25
Ditch-Diqqer to Prime Minister?
Most All Britons Agree
Bevan Is q Man
With Future
By Williom McGoffin

With Future
By Williom McGoffin
LONDON.-Aneurin Bevan was
born left-handed. He learned to
use his right instead but, says
he with a grin. I'm still left
minded"
He is, indeed. In fact, Britain's
Health Minister has parried the
reputation of being one of the
farthest left members of the pres
ent left-wing government.
Mr.. Bevan is a controversial
figure-both admired and hated
a man with a chip on his shoulder,
and one, most Englishmen agree,
with a future. There are some
who see him as Prime Minister
one day.
Some of the Bevan biographers
lay great stress on the fact that
he is a shifted sinistral' which.
they say, often has a profound
effect on mans life.
Had he not made the shift from
left to right handedness he might,
they think, still be working at q
Welsh mine coal face instead Of
sitting in Whitehall doing things
that give heartburn to doctors.
contractors and steel kings while
underprivileged bless his name.
Self-Made Orator
+ In any case, he surely never
would bave become the great
orator he now Is otherwise. He
and his arch foe, Winston Church.
i'll, are paired in public esteem as
the two best speakers in Britain
today" Mr.. Bevan learned public
speaking to correct a stammer
that came when he forced himself
to use his right hand. He learned
by reciting Shakespeare out loud
and by forcing himself to butt
into street corner arguments in
his home town Of Tredegar. South
Wales. -
"Nye" Bevan, now 50, not only
has dug coal but he has worked
as a ditch digger in his day. He's
no ordinary bruiser, however. He
has a polished drawing room man
ner that makes him q social sue
cess. His wit, his laughter. his
conversational ability make him
popular with hostesses despite
the fact that he refuses to dress
up.
, Critics say this refusal to don
white tie and tails is a pose, de-
signed to gain publicity and estab-
lish him as "the peepul's cham
pion." Mr.. Bevan himself says:
my miner pals sent me to Lon
don to represent them and to bet
ter conditions for their fellows. I
came here to do job, not to
waste money on tailoring. I shall
remain true to the class that
sent me to the labor college and
that believes in my loyalty to es-
sential principles"
Ranks With Intellectuals
His education was crude and
limited. compared to that Of old
school tie Socialists like Cripps,
Attlee and Dalton. He supplement-
ed it, however, with an enormous
amount of reading and today the
boy who left school at Is ranks
as one of the Labor Party's most
brilliant intellectuals.
His following, outside his own
Welsh hills, has been chiefly
among the intellectuals Of the
party and those members of the
middle class whose sympathies
have turned leftward in the past
decade, Until a few years ago,
the trade union chiefs looked on
him with some suspicion.
He has travelled far since the
bitter days when as one of Miner
David Bevan's seven children, he
lived in a little stone cottage
with sanded floor and rode to
the coal mines on a streetcar
reserved for miners SO other pas
sengers would not be dirtied hav-
ing to rub elbows with them.
Among his friends now are the
millionaire publisher, Lord Bea-
verbrook despite Bevan's fire.
quent cracks at the "kept British
'press"), and the best-selling au-
thors, Arthur Koestler and George
Orwell. He edited the hard-hitting
Socialist Weekly Tribune (Which
he and his friend, Sir Stafford
Cripps, founded) from 1912 until
he joined the government after
the 1945 election and had to turn
the family typewriter over to his