CLLR Madeline Murray, Bolton Council's executive member for health and adult social care, is right to sing the praises of the NHS. It is indeed the Labour Party's greatest achievement.

She is right too, to say that the Tories brought the NHS to its knees and that Labour turned it around.

However, we could celebrate even more if we had what Nye Bevan insisted on - free healthcare "from cradle to grave".

What happened to free dentistry - even if you are lucky enough to be registered with a NHS dentist? Or free eye care and spectacles, free care for the elderly and free prescriptions?

The Tories, of course, were against the NHS, even before its introduction. Winston Churchill - said by many to be our greatest politician - opposed it vociferously. So too did the British Medical Association and a majority of GPs. Even a number of Labour politicians said it would not work.

But one man had a dream and he made that dream come true, even against what would have been insurmountable opposition to most people. Thankfully, Nye Bevan wasn't most people.

So not only should we be celebrating the 60th birthday of a great institution, we should also be giving thanks for this great man, whose memorials are the hospitals and surgeries, all over the land, where free healthcare is all too often taken for granted.

Nye Bevan, a man of vision, resigned in 1951 in protest against the introduction of prescription charges, which came into being the following year. Today's politicians pall into insignificance.

Brian Derbyshire Ribchester Grove Bolton