The Doctor Who Diagnosed a ‘Wider Prescription’
From Planet 245
by Frances Williams
Frances Williams puts forward how GP Carl Clowes’ radical legacy ‒ from the co-operative movement to the Welsh language, anti-nuclear energy policy to internationalist ‘twinning’ in the Global South ‒ offers lessons in possibility for creating alternatives to neo-Thatcherism.
In November 2021, the week before Carl Clowes sadly passed away, I was writing-up the story of Nant Gwrtheyrn for a forthcoming book – a history of the field of practice known as ‘Arts in Health’. In this, I am keen to show how radical social movements of the 1960s and 1970s allowed the concept of ‘health’ to be re-imagined in relation to ‘British’ culture. The significant contribution to community development made by Carl, I believed, had not received proper attention in accounts written to date. This was the case since most of these had been penned in the English language or within the exclusive preserve of academia.
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Frances Williams teaches at Wrexham Glyndŵr University and is a co-founder of the Critical Arts in Health Network (CAHN). Her book, When was Arts in Health? is due 2022, published by Palgrave.
