ONE of the influences on Nye Bevan when setting up the NHS was a then-popular Dumbarton-born GP, A J Cronin, who wrote two influential books, The Citadel and Dr Finlay's Casebook. In The Citadel a local patient-centred GP blows up the town drains in a Welsh village when the council refuse to upgrade a local health hazard, and is tempted by private practice but then returns to open-door patient care in East London.

In contrast Dr Finlay's Casebook, new information shows it was written when Cronin was a temporary GP in Garelochhead, near Faslane. The location in the opening of the novel is that of Garelochhead, the doctors' house being close to one named Rannochbrae giving a lead to the fictional town name of Tannochbrae; other stories describe houses and areas in the village.

AJ Cronin should be honoured as one of the first writers to deplore the medical conditions of the 1920s and give a vision of care which was followed by the founders of the NHS.

Dr J D Mckelvie,

Drumquin, Brae, Shetland.