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Walking in the Shade: Volume Two of My Autobiography, 1949 - 1962

Book by Doris Lessing · 1 quotes · Nhs, Welfare State

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Walking in the Shade: Volume Two of My Autobiography, 1949 - 1962 Quotes

“First of all, the National Health Service, the Welfare State. What pride in it, what elation – and what confidence! The best thing was still the young doctors setting up group practices. Most but not all were socialists of various kinds. Memories of the thirties were close, documented by The Stars Look Down, Love on the Dole, The Citadel, novels which everyone had read. Whole families could be brought low because of the illness of one member. That terrible poverty in the 1930s, that cruel indifference to suffering on the part of Britain’s rulers – but now there was the welfare state. Pensions meant old age was no longer a threat. (Forty years later a government can say blandly, But we can’t afford it – and cut benefits that the citizens imagined they had been paying for. Has anyone ever thought of suing a government that reneges on its promises?”

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Book:Walking in the Shade: Volume Two of My Autobiography, 1949 - 1962
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