During his political career Aneurin Bevan was involved in a number of embittered clashes. At a time when local government reform is once more a talking point, this Flashback recalls the time in 1949 when the famous Welshman's stinging oratory was levelled against The Hereford Times.

ONE of the most controversial and charismatic British politicians of this century, Aneurin Bevan was a passionate orator who often made vicious attacks on the Press. Winston Churchill once accused 'Nye' of having embittered the life of the whole nation with the lash of his tongue. In America, he was labelled 'the champion Labour Party dirt-mouth'.

It was back in 1949 that Bevan, architect of the National Health Service, launched a peppery assault on The Hereford Times and sparked off a rumpus that attracted nationwide attention. This newspaper snapped back through its columns and received solid backing from Hereford City Council.

During a major debate in the House of Commons over the Boundary Commission an MP produced a copy of The Hereford Times containing statements made by worried members of the city authority.

The Mayor, Alderman Bill Piggott, Councillor Ernest Langford and the Town Clerk, Tom Feltham, had been to a meeting in London where, they claimed, Bevan indicated that local authorities responsible for populations of 100,000 or less would be wiped out.

When the report was read to Bevan, the Minister of Health, in the House of Commons he retorted that the time of the house was being wasted in basing an argument on a report 'from some obscure provincial newspaper'.

Bevan claimed there was no limit to the capacity of British newspapers to invent stories, and failed to change his tune even when it was pointed out that The Hereford Times was merely reporting a speech by the city's Socialist mayor. Contending that the report was 'absolutely and utterly untrue', Bevan added: ''We know how some of these local newspapers report local council meetings, the people ought to have the same distrust of newspaper reports that I have.''

Back home, the city council, believing itself to be fighting for its very existence and realising that The Hereford Times would be an invaluable ally, rallied to the newspaper's defence

The mayor stressed that the report had been 'perfectly fair and accurate', and Councillor Langford agreed, pointing out that 'a most alarming position was put before us at the London meeting and it looked as though this county might be wiped out as far as local government was concerned'. The newspaper itself was swift to respond, with editor Philip Peacock issuing a lengthy statement. He defended the report as 'meticulously accurate' and counter-attacked by reiterating his newspaper's views about regionalisation, which he feated 'could destroy the right of the people to govern themselves'.

The national Press followed the row with interest and headlines included: 'Editor fires back at Bevan charge' (Daily Mail), 'Editor Peacock answers Bevan' (Daily Express) and 'Bevan is asked to withdraw' (News Chronicle). The row continued, and in a leading article headed 'Pressophobia', The Hereford Times rounded on Bevan's 'obsure newspaper' jibe.

'In this, he forgot the humble nature of his own beginnings, from whose obscurity, for the sake of the nation's unity, both in war and peace, it would have been better had he never emerged', it raged.

This prompted an angry response from some MPs, one of whom described it as 'a particularly degrading sneer at the circumstances of the minister's origins'.

Bevan died in 1960 and was succeeded as MP for Ebbw Vale by Michael Foot, who eventually became his biographer.

Foot was also destined to be in the news in Herefordshire, but for a different reason. In 1963 he was seriously injured in a car accident at the St Owen's Cross black spot. Doctors and nurses at the General Hospital staged a round-the-clock battle to save his life after the accident, in which his wife, film producer Jill Craigie, who was driving their car, was badly injured.