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West End Extra - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published: 23 November 2007

We have to be patient for NHS art operation

• BREAKFAST porridge here was much strengthened by your paper’s news that the Middlesex Hospital’s monumental murals are stricken off the NHS list for immediate sale (Tate Britain ‘saves’ hospital paintings, November 16).
Permit me to congratulate your newspaper and the first-class report you devoted to the idea of getting rid of these touching works of art.
Linked to the new £635 million, 14-floor hospital on Euston Road, here we have a chairman, board, and trust staff of 600 who are taken by surprise, quote: “The hospital had no idea the public cared so much.”
We wish to apportion no blame for this schism – triumphalism is out of fashion – yet we must rejoice in that the generous donor of these works, the artist Frederick Cayley-Robinson and the medical staff and patients who so admired them for 85 years, are, in part, vindicated.
As we all know, the possession of a work of art is nine-tenths of the legal battle to protect it.
As our NHS did not value this gift, we must feel grateful to Tate Britain for undertaking to safeguard the four canvases in sound storage.
True, the story is to be continued. The panels honour nursing and medical staff, orphans and our war wounded. Our new Middlesex Hospital tower’s foyer-reception would have been the ideal hanging space. Let us be patient.
JACK BUDDEN
Fitzroy Square, W1

Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, West End Extra, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@westendextra.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Wednesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld. Please include a full name, postal address and telephone number.
Letters may be edited for reasons of space.

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