The Imaginary Bus: Khalo Who Foresaw His Own Death in a Dream — Volume One
The bus had travelled only a few hundred metres when we heard a sharp screech of brakes from the right-hand side of the street.
Then a collision.
Not so violent that everything was thrown into chaos, but enough for all three of us to turn our heads at once.
I put my foot on the brake.
Coco jumped down from the woman in red’s arms.
The donkey, who had been curled up in a corner only moments before, suddenly raised his head.
Philosophy and psychology apparently bored him. An accident was another matter.
— What happened? asked Lena.
I looked out of the window.
A cyclist was lying on the ground. A few metres beyond him, a car had stopped with its hazard lights on.
— I think we should get out.
— All of us? asked the woman in red.
— The donkey can stay for now. If he gets off too, we’ll need three ambulances instead of one.
The donkey brayed.
— Objection recorded.
I opened the bus door.
It was still raining.
Lena, the woman in red and I got off. Coco followed us without asking permission.
Several people had gathered around the cyclist.
He was a young man, perhaps in his early thirties, lying on his side and holding his leg.
— We’ve called an ambulance, said a passer-by.
Lena sat down beside the man but did not touch him.
— Can you speak?
He nodded.
— Did you hit your head? asked the woman in red.
— I don’t think so… Mostly my leg.
— Don’t move, I said. — The ambulance is on its way.
Then I stepped back a little.
More people were gathering.
One held an umbrella.
Another tried to direct cars away from the scene.
Someone was speaking to the emergency call handler on the phone.
For a few minutes, every discussion of love, dependence and fear left our minds.
Life, as usual, had laid a new subject at our feet.
— If this happened somewhere else, said the woman in red quietly, — perhaps the first question would be how much the ambulance would cost.
I looked at her.
— And many people here still don’t know what a long history lies behind those simple words: ‘The ambulance is on its way.’
— You mean the NHS? asked Lena.
— Exactly.
We could hear a siren in the distance.
— People today might imagine the NHS has always been here, as though it fell from the sky one day or someone at the top graciously decided to provide healthcare for everyone.
— Wasn’t that how it happened? asked the woman in red.
I laughed.
— No, my dear. Social rights don’t usually fall from the sky.
The siren grew nearer.
— The NHS began on 5 July 1948. Clement Attlee’s Labour government was in power, and the health minister, Aneurin Bevan, played the leading part in shaping and introducing it. The National Health Service Act had been passed in 1946. The aim was comprehensive healthcare for everyone, based on need and free at the point of use.
— And all this came after the Second World War, said Lena.
— Yes. Britain emerged from the war exhausted, in debt and facing enormous economic problems. Yet that same society decided to expand the welfare state. The Beveridge Report of 1942 had also helped lay the groundwork, emphasising the need for universal healthcare and social security.
— So you consider the NHS an achievement of the working class? asked the woman in red.
— I can’t see it apart from the struggles of this country’s working class and social movements.
I glanced at the man on the ground.
— When miners, factory workers, railway and dock workers, hospital staff and people in a thousand other places fight for years for security, wages, insurance and the right to organise, the result isn’t always just a few more pounds in their pay packets. Sometimes part of that struggle becomes a social right.
— But if we’re going to tell the history accurately, it wasn’t only the trade unions, Lena said.
— Of course. We mustn’t shorten history to prove our own point.
The woman in red smiled.
— Attlee’s government, the Beveridge Report, the experience of war, the people’s vote in the 1945 election, the labour movement, social reformers, healthcare workers and different political and social groups are all part of that history. Bevan himself faced fierce opposition from some doctors and the British Medical Association when he tried to establish the NHS.
Just then the ambulance arrived.
Two paramedics got out.
The crowd stepped back a little.
One knelt beside the man while the other opened a bag of equipment.
Coco watched from a distance.
The donkey had poked his head out past the bus window, perhaps checking that nobody thought he was the next patient.
— Then what part did the royal family play in creating the NHS? asked the woman in red.
— In the history of its creation, the law, government, Parliament and social struggles were decisive. The NHS came out of a postwar government decision, its implementation and an Act of Parliament. It wasn’t a scheme presented to the people as a gift from the royal family.
— Perhaps when history is told only from above, said Lena, — ordinary people and their struggles gradually disappear from the picture.
— Exactly.
— After a few generations, a right that was fought for can begin to look like a favour from people who weren’t at the front of the struggle to win it.
— And the Soviet Union? asked the woman in red.
I looked at her.
I knew the question would get there eventually.
— We need to be careful with this part.
Lena smiled.
— Good heavens. Khalo being careful?
— Sometimes. Usually when there aren’t any police nearby.
They both laughed.
Then I continued:
— You can’t leave the Soviet Union or the spread of socialist ideas out of the political climate of the twentieth century. The existence of a rival system that claimed to guarantee education, healthcare, work and a range of social rights played some part in the ideological competition of the period.
I paused.
— From a Marxist perspective, one could argue that capitalism in Western Europe faced pressure from a political and economic alternative as well as from its own working class. Western governments knew that if a large part of the population lived with nothing but poverty, unemployment and insecurity, socialist movements would become more appealing.
— So you’re saying they were afraid of the Soviet Union?
— I’m saying competition with socialism was one of the wider political conditions of the age. But if we say the NHS was created only out of fear of the Soviet Union, we’ve made history much too simple.
— Pressure from below, the experience of war, a public desire for welfare and security, and worldwide competition between two systems, said Lena.
— That’s a more accurate picture, to my mind.
— One thing is clear, though, said the woman in red. — Capitalism didn’t wake up one morning and say, ‘The people are dear to us. Let’s give them free healthcare.’
— Personally, I wouldn’t count on that sort of miraculous awakening.
Lena laughed.
— Social rights usually have a history. Behind them are strikes and organisations, votes and protests, negotiations and defeats, retreats and another round of struggle.
One of the paramedics was examining the man.
The other took something out of the equipment bag.
Then they carefully prepared him to be moved.
I watched them for a few moments.
— And now, for this man, all that history has become something very simple.
— What? asked the woman in red.
— When he’s lying on wet tarmac, the first thing the paramedic asks isn’t how much money he has in his bank account.
I paused.
— They kneel beside him and ask, ‘Where does it hurt?’
Nobody spoke this time.
The ambulance took the man away.
Its rear doors closed.
The siren came on and the vehicle slowly made its way through the traffic.
The rain went on falling.
— Perhaps one difficulty is that when a right survives for several generations, people gradually assume it has always been there, Lena said.
— Exactly.
I looked at the street.
— And once the history of a right is forgotten, it becomes harder to defend.
— So we need to remember who fought for it? asked the woman in red.
— At the very least, we should know that when something is ‘free at the point of use’ today, that doesn’t mean it was won without cost or without struggle.
— And of course the public funds the NHS through taxes and other public resources, Lena said.
— True. ‘Free’ means that when you’re ill, you shouldn’t have to open your wallet first so someone can decide whether you have a right to treatment.
The donkey brayed from inside the bus.
I turned round.
— Yes, comrade. We know. You’ve always been in favour of a public hay service.
The woman in red burst out laughing.
— I think we should get back on now, said Lena.
I looked at the bus, its interior lights glowing in the rain.
— Yes. Before we’re fined for parking illegally and the state claws back every historic gain of the working class from my pocket in one go.
They both laughed.
We headed back to the bus.
Coco ran ahead.
The donkey withdrew his head from the window and made himself look busy, as though he hadn’t been waiting for us at all.
I put a foot on the bus step.
Then I turned once more.
The ambulance was no longer in sight.
Only the street remained.
The rain.
A few people who had gone on their way again.
And the bicycle still lying wet by the roadside.
But something of that scene stayed with me:
A man on the ground.
Several strangers around him.
Two paramedics.
And a right that looks ordinary today but once was not.
I climbed aboard and sat down at the wheel.
The woman in red took Coco back into her arms.
Lena sat in her place.
The donkey wore an expression suggesting that the whole discussion of the NHS had taken place under his direct supervision.
— Right, friends. We’ve suspended the discussion of fear for a few minutes.
— Only a few? asked the woman in red.
I looked at her.
— I’m afraid fear still has a return ticket.
The donkey brayed.
— Don’t interrupt. You didn’t even have a ticket for the outward journey.
I started the engine.
Rain ran down the windscreen.
The wipers went once to the right.
Once to the left.
And the bus returned to London’s wet streets.
But before we resumed our conversation about fear, I was thinking about something perhaps more important than fear itself:
If people forget the history of their rights, how will they know what they are losing?
Historical sources for this part
- NHS England — Milestones of the NHS: the beginning of the NHS in 1948 and the principle of healthcare free at the point of use.
- UK Parliament — National Health Service Act 1946: the law establishing comprehensive healthcare and its implementation from 5 July 1948, with Aneurin Bevan’s role as health minister.
- The National Archives — The Foundation of the NHS: the Beveridge Report, the Attlee government, Bevan’s role, opposition from medical professionals and the social background of the NHS’s creation.
- The National Archives — Attlee’s Britain 1945–1951: the development of the postwar welfare state and the NHS’s place among the Labour government’s reforms.
To be continued…
Naser Kamali
London, a rainy day, in my cosy little room.
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