Dr Finlay’s Casebook was Cronin’s most famous creation.
But Cronin had just as much influence before the war in shaping public opinion ahead of the NHS. The Citadel depicts incompetence among doctors alongside feats of courage. It retains its narrative appeal to this day.
It draws heavily on Cronin’s time as a doctor in Tredegar at a time when Aneurin Bevan, later to become the architect of the NHS, was also living there. The Citadel was made into a film in 1938 – rated by some as Hollywood’s first venture into gritty social realism.