Harry's Last Stand

by Harry Leslie Smith, Ric Jerrom (Reader)

As one of the last remaining survivors of the Great Depression and the Second World War, I will not go gently into that good night. I want to tell you what the world looks like through my eyes, so you can help change it....

In November 2013, 91-year-old Yorkshireman, RAF veteran, and ex-carpet salesman Harry Leslie Smith’s Guardian article – "This year, I will wear a poppy for the last time" – was shared almost 60,000 times on Facebook and started a huge debate about the state of society.

Now he brings his unique perspective to bear on NHS cutbacks, benefits policy, political corruption, food poverty, the cost of education – and much more. From the deprivation of 1930s Barnsley and the terror of war to the creation of our welfare state, Harry has experienced how a great civilisation can rise from the rubble. But at the end of his life, he fears how easily it is being eroded.

Harry’s Last Stand is a lyrical, searing modern invective that shows what the past can teach us and how the future is ours for the taking.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, History, Biography, Memoir, Autobiography, Biography Memoir

MP3 CD

First published June 5, 2014

About the author

Harry Leslie Smith was a British survivor of the Great Depression, a Second World War RAF veteran and, in his 90s, an activist for the poor, for refugees and for the preservation of social democracy. He wrote for numerous publications including The New Statesman, The Daily Mirror, The Tyee, International Business Times as well as the Guardian where his articles have been shared hundreds of thousands of times on Facebook and have attracted huge comment and debate. He authored several books about Britain during the Great Depression, the Second World War and postwar austerity. He lived in Yorkshire.
Harry Leslie Smith books are represented by Greene & Heaton. His books include 1923, The Empress of Australia, Harry's Last Stand, Love Among the Ruins, and Don't Let My Past Be Your Future.

Reviews

[Charlotte Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the very beginning of this book the author’s poetic yet brutal writing style hits you over the head with a passion and sincerity that is to be expected of a true Yorkshire-man like Harry.

As a (nearly) 23 year-old student, getting by on student loans and a part-time job, it is difficult to comprehend the expanse of time that Harry has lived and remembers. As he says ‘I am not an historian, but at 91 I am history’ and reading this book you really get that feeling. To be honest, unless I am studying a book in university, I am not one for post-it notes or highlighting in my books but with this one I just had to add post-it notes to highlight my thoughts on certain passages and the way they made me think.

By including references to popular activists such as Russell Brand and by including references to war poetry in a very subtle way, Harry brings these problems and issues to a level where anyone could relate to what he is saying and understand it. I had no prior knowledge of politics before going into this and I fully understand the vast majority of what the author was trying to get across.

The combination of real-life experience in the form of a memoir and the manifesto of what Harry sees for the future was amazingly done and had me very emotional at points. I think people from all over the world, not just Britain would benefit greatly from this.

If I have learnt anything from this book it’s that one person can make a difference because you’re never the only one feeling a certain way about the state of the country or the world. If all those individual people stood up on their own, they’d soon realise that they’re not on their own and Harry is proving that with this brilliant book.

I hope I got my thoughts about this book across in an eloquent enough way to make you want to pick it up because I believe it will be one of the most important books you read. In a time where ebooks seem to be taking over, I urge you to buy a physical copy of this memoir/manifesto; make it yours, read it, highlight passages, reread it time and again, because this is a book that needs to be talked about and shared. At only 224 pages, there’s no excuse.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Old Harry led quite a life, having started out as a hardscrabble urchin in the England that Orwell brought to dreary life in his writings. Harry takes us through his impoverished childhood to his war years, following that up with his postwar success in life and business. He's also a writer, so we can see that Harry has not let his disadvantaged start hold him back.

The trouble is that our man Harry is ticked off with the state of the world, and who can really blame him? As he points out, a working man can no longer support a family on a single paycheck like you could back in the day. I agree with him on this point: I remember supporting a family of four on a Private's pay. In order to do that now you would have to sell dope on the side. Yes, I agree that Harry has a point, but I'm not sure I agree with his solutions. Harry is a firm believer in the welfare state and, to over-simplify his case, let's just say that he believes in taking wealth away from people who have earned it or inherited it and giving it to people who did nothing to earn it. You know, the one percent the socialists moan about.

But here's the point: I can't dismiss all of Harry's suggestions. He advocates for free health care, a benefit that many already enjoy. I can get behind that. He also suggests some sensible changes in political systems to make governments more accountable to the voters. Who wouldn't like that? But then he turns around and points out that England has a shortfall of a million houses and almost in the same breath suggests taking in more immigrants. I thought England was already almost immigrated to death.

So you've gathered by now that Harry is far left and I'm mid-right in our politics, but I was left with the feeling that he had some sensible ideas mixed in with the socialist nonsense. I am of the opinion that Harry and I could sit down and discuss this in a pub some time and be civilized to one another. Probably we could meet somewhere in the middle and part on amicable terms. How many political opponents can say that these days?

This was written by an excellent writer, and it's a book that will make you think. Harry is gone now and I wish him well in socialist Heaven.

[K.J. Charles]

A tremendous polemic by this sorely missed, deeply decent man, a WW2 veteran brought up in horrifying, corrosive poverty. It underscores many important things--the short and fragile lives of the NHS and welfare state that created the Britain I grew up in, the terror of living in a country that doesn't support you if you struggle or care if you die, the callousness of the 1% and the apathy with which we've let the post-war attempt to equalise things slip through our fingers, under the leadership of the cruel, greedy and self-centred. Excoriating on austerity and privilege, angrily refusing the 'divide and rule' of Faragist anti immigration racism, he makes you want to take to the streets. A cry from the heart and a crucial reminder that things are going to get a lot worse for almost everyone once more if we don't pull out of this inequality death spiral.

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Harry's Last Stand. This is an autobiography and political tract from 91 year old Harry Leslie Smith. Harry Smith made the news in 2013 when he declared that he would no longer wear a remembrance day poppy, as he was disgusted with seeing it debased on the lapels of our politicians. In Harry's Last Stand he uses his own experiences of life during the Great Depression to draw parallels between the depravation he experienced and the return to these pre welfare state values that he sees now under austerity. Following the gains by UKIP it is quite magnificent to have the message brought home that not all OAP's are far right loons. I recently listened to an item on BBC radio 4 that discussed how contemporary 18-25 year olds are turning more to the right politically, this is something that scares the bejeezus out of me. Harry Smith tries his hardest to provide a wake-up call about the road austerity measures are taking us down. This reads like Jilted Generation but from the other side of the baby-boom generation, the message is largely the same.

' We had hoped that our children would keep the torch of civilisation burning while we moved into our senior years, but something happened and their resolve wasn't as strong as ours.'

The basic premise of the book is that the pre war generation fought long and hard in order to build a welfare state that was designed to protect and support the lowest of society. Benefits, a free health service and economic support were supposed to create a better society, and were to replace the Victorian values of reliance on charity, stigmatisation and shame of poor relief. These Victorian values are what Harry see's being returned to the UK. Today more and more working families are reliant of food banks in order to feed their families. Society has returned to a situation where renting is the norm, with the dream of owning your own property fading into the distance for most people. Not only that, but the quality of the property available is being pushed lower and lower as landlords feel able to push the boundaries of legality once again due to the desperation of those needing homes. Once again people on benefits are seen as at fault, the ideas of the 'deserving' and 'un-deserving poor' are once again taking over. This is driven largely by the popular media and it is these myths that Harry Smith is trying to debunk. I hope, I seriously hope that people read this book and take on board the emotional and heartfelt message that this elderly gentleman is trying to get across. To my mind this is a very important message that needs to be heard.

[John Farebrother · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would give this book six stars if I could. It should be required reading for all politicians, and all public (ie private) school children. The author is in his nineties, and has lived through the best and the worst of the UK in the last century and this. Looking back on his life, he shares with us the benefit of his experiences. With working class, northern wisdom, he points out to us what should be common knowledge to everyone, in language that makes it blindingly obvious: the generation that fought WWII invested their energies and money in building a new country that looked after the poorest. The NHS, free quality education, decent housing, and jobs for everyone. No more the desperate poverty of the depression, that not only led to WWII but literally destroyed a generation, a generation who had been promised "never again". Equally obvious in the author's account is the way in which we were led astray from that path of a caring society by Margaret Thatcher, to such an extent that today we are living her dream of a country without a society. A time when only the rich can expect a decent life. A return to the 1920s and 1930s, with an uncertain future for all of us. Read this book.

[Allie Riley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just wow. A rallying cry to all for social justice, civic involvement and equity. Beautifully written and tear-inducingly poignant in many places. I highlighted so much, I may as well have highlighted it all. A wonderful read. I am only sorry that I did not read it sooner so that I could tell Harry himself how much I appreciated it. Highly recommended. Should be required reading for all.

[Julie]

8.0/10

I read this a while ago, in my Silent Period of 2018. It's difficult to say I "enjoyed" it, for how can one enjoy the re-telling of a difficult, hardscrabble life, lived hand-to-mouth? But I enjoyed connecting with the man who lived with dignity, and honour, and good old-fashioned values and morality -- the values of goodness and taking care of one's neighbour -- and being responsible for one's neighbour, in that "good old fashioned way".

I realize this sounds like my mom-and-pop review of Righteous Incorruptibility but I really connected with Harry. Perhaps because we are in a maelstrom today of Harry's anti-thesis: the roiling, mannerless, corruptible, unethical pit.

I was sorry to hear that Harry had died, recently.

https://tinyurl.com/y8a38nep

He deserves a good long rest. Rest in peace, Harry.

We'll try to remember to live with more dignity and goodness, with you as an example. It's harder for we mere mortals, but you set a good example.

[C.S. Woolley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book, absolutely fantastic and really quite a shock to the system!

Everyone should read this book and really think about the lessons that were learned in the past and how we, as a society, are forgetting what it was like before.

[Ninette · Rating 4 out of 5]

I must admit that when I first saw this book and it's title, I assumed this would be the usual rant us younger folk expect from the elderly - you know about how easy we have it and how lazy we are and yada yada yada. So I did not bother to look any further until I saw this interview with him that justkissmyfrog posted on her youtube channel.

He was nothing like I imagined him to be. He was funny, compassionate and still so in touch. Yeah, we do not really expect that from the elderly. And as with all generalizations it is obviously not true across the board. I am a little ashamed of my initial judgement. Especially with my background I should be more aware of prejudices. But, alas, I realized my mistake and turned to his book for more of what he had to say.

And boy did he have a lot to say and in such a charming manner. He really lived a remarkable live that would have been a shame to be lost to oblivion. But he has got a nobler reason for telling his story than fishing for compliments or sympathy. He uses it to illustrate a point about our current state of affairs and the course we are on - not just in Britain, but across the board.

I certainly recognized some of the issues to be akin to some here in Germany. But while I for the most part did share his opinion even before I picked up this book, I never thought to look at it from quite this angle. That did help untangle some of my jumbled thoughts and see the proverbial golden thread running through. So while he does not give easy answers - neither does he claim to - I do have a little more clarity and something to orient my decisions.

Of course, whenever these things sound simple and easy answers are thrown about, you are probably not seeing the whole picture. They are always more complicated and we should be aware of that lest we comply with rash actions or unfavorable agendas.

I suppose the best we can do is to raise awareness, to not forfeit our votes - even if just to delude the less well meaning ones, to try and do more good than harm to the world around us, and, last but not least, to sometimes look beyond our prejudices. We might just hit upon gold where we would least expect it.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fine rant, not unmeasured, by Harry Leslie Smith who may be in his 90s but is far from dead. His miserable experiences of poverty as a child inform his beliefs now, and perhaps the most useful contribution of all is his depiction of the corrosive nature of that poverty on human relationships. His family was not 'poor but happy' and the story of what happened to his parents' relationship in the teeth of the Great Depression is harrowing.

I felt he sidelined the matter of his many adult years spent living and working outside the UK, at best not making the most of the opportunities for informative comparisons. I certainly don't agree with him on every policy point (eg he argues for universal daycare for children, without seeing that it is the economic policies against which he rails that drive the need for this, not the heartfelt needs and wishes of parents of all genders) whilst agreeing with the broad thrust of his argument. It is a delight to see someone of his age and experience engaged, compassionately, with current affairs.

[Jennifer (JC-S) · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Though I am not an historian, I am history.’

Harry Smith, born in 1923 and celebrating his 92nd birthday this month (February 2015), has quite a lot to say about the UK and the modern world. There’s an urgency about Harry’s views, and reading about his life experiences it’s hard not to agree with much of what he has to say.

Harry Smith lived through the awful, grinding poverty of the Great Depression. His sister Marion died in 1926 as a consequence of tuberculosis because his family could not afford medical treatment.

‘In those days, there was no national health service; one either had the dosh to pay for you medicine or you did without.’

By joining the Royal Air Force in 1941, Harry finally obtained many of the things that many of us take for granted: food every day, decent clothing, a bed to sleep in. Harry did okay, despite having little formal education and ins spite of the British class system.

So what is Harry’s book about, and why is it worth reading?

Central to the book is the promise made by politicians after the war that ‘no one in this country would face that type of unemployment and helplessness again’. It was to be a more optimistic new world, one in which education would ensure equality of opportunity and healthcare would be universally available. Instead, Harry points to evidence that the rise in living costs and a decrease in government programs are diminishing opportunity and extinguishing hope. In Harry’s view, much of what government is doing is of benefit only to the rich. Who else can afford expensive schools and healthcare? Who else benefits from massive subsidies to business? Government austerity did not work during the Great Depression: why (and how) will it work now?

‘We have become hyper-vigilant about imaginary risks to our person and our society, but indifferent to the threats that austerity creates to our neighbourhoods, our schools, our hospitals and our friends.’

Harry Smith’s book is worth reading, whether you agree with his left-leaning views or not. The Great Depression is not an historical event for him: he experienced it directly. As Harry Smith moves between his own past experiences and his analysis of contemporary issues, it’s hard not to agree with some of his suggestions for improvement. Do we really want to see a return to an era in which a child can die in a developed country of a treatable disease because medical treatment is only afforded to those who can pay? Do we really believe that corporations are more important than people?

I recommend this book to anyone interested in reading a passionate and articulate view about learning from the lessons of the past. We need to take responsibility for our future.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

[Harold Walters · Rating 4 out of 5]

A GoodReads Giveaway

At the age of 91, Harry Leslie Smith states, “I am not an historian, but I am history, and I fear its repetition.”

A survivor of the Great Depression, a veteran of World War II, Harry is convinced that the world his generation fought to create is within a hair’s breadth of being destroyed by corporate greed and, to some degree, consumer apathy.

Harry’s book opens with a comment on peace at the end of WWII: “…peace smelled…of lilac, petrol and rotting flesh of the dead German civilians entombed beneath the fire-bombed city of Hamburg.”

The disillusionment suggested reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut’s reaction to the fire-bombing of Dresden as described in his novel Slaughter House Five.

Born and reared in midst of British poverty, Harry was pleased when after the war Britain essentially became a welfare state in which ordinary people were given a chance to be educated, to realize the benefits of universal health care, to obtain employment in a relatively safe work environment.

A welfare state, if properly administered, is a good thing for the general population. It need not become “Animal Farm”.

And for a while, Britain — and much of the western world, for that matter — was prosperous. Its people, if not all immediately living in comfort, were provided the means [education, health care, etc.] to attain a reasonably prosperous life style.

Now, says Harry Smith, just a couple of generations later, that world he and others fought for is crumbling. It is crumbling because of “corporatism without conscience” — essentially, common greed.

Governments once again — as so often in history — have become the lapdogs of the giant corporations and basically ignore the needs of the general populace. See what’s happening to social programs, see their erosion, says Harry.

This is an interesting, smack-in-the-chops-for-attention kind of book for the most part. Even though it is short, it does become a wee bit repetitious, however. Harry makes his point immediately, supports it with details from his own life, but hammers the nail a time or two more than is necessary.

Nevertheless, pay attention to Harry’s stand. Sadly — clichés exist for a reason — history has been known to repeat itself.

[Ellie · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Harry's Last Stand' is a book that I feel is very important in the society we find ourselves living in today. It's a book that everyone should read because I believe that it is a book everyone can learn from.

I am not someone who is thoroughly involved in, or who thoroughly understands, politics (although I'm trying to be). And although this book could be pitched as a political testament, Harry writes in such an honest, accessible and understanding way, that I never felt as if this book could only be read by a select few. Harry's writing is never condescending. Instead reading the book is like talking to a friend because woven around his debates are (often heartbreaking) stories from his own life. For me the element of memoir added to this book is what truly separates it from other political books. The memories he chooses to include do not distract from the point he is trying to make; they actually strengthen it. They reiterate the central thesis of the book: that society is reversing back to what it was in the 1930s and to stop it we need to learn from history.

Harry's Last Stand reaffirmed a lot of what I already believed in but it did more than that, it strengthened my opinions. It made me stop and think and there were many moments where I had to put the book down just so I could mull over what I'd just read or go and find someone to talk to about the issue I had just been confronted with. Great books will do that.

The points raised in Harry's Last Stand made me angry. I became completely riled at some of the aspects of society he laid bare. In a way it made me scared for the future, and the inevitability of history repeating itself, but it also offered hope.

Harry's Last Stand isn't a book that should be ignored. It's a book that should be absorbed and discussed. It's an opportunity to reevaluate life and the world we live in, rather than just sit still and let it pass you by. People should listen to what Harry has to say. As he himself says 'I am not an historian, but at 91 I am history' and, as you read your way through Harry's Last Stand, you will discover that history is important and it is vital we learn from it.

[Gavin Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Harry's Last Stand... is part opinion column, part social history, part memoir and part angry rant. It's hard to disagree with anything he says here. Britain has undoubtedly abandoned the social progress made following the Second World War in favour of austerity politics and an agenda of deliberate social division. I feel just as angry as the author does. Unfortunately, given the recent election victory for the Conservative party, it seems we are both simply pissing in the wind, particularly in regards to Harry's native England. (Whatever individual people may think of the SNP dominance of Scottish MPs, it surely indicates a desire for something different.) Smith also talks about the difference in worker-management relations in Germany and how it is indicative of a society that is less stratified and has more of a sense of unity and fairness. This is something I see in many facets of life in Japan and there is an irony in the fact that the countries that supposedly lost the Second World War seem to have won the proceeding peace.

Smith's proposed solutions to the new/old problems facing Britain are simple: people need to vote, they need to get involved, they need to organise, they need to care. Again, I agree with the author, but I'm not sure how many others do. I am intrigued by his plan for a nationwide gap year that would see students participate in a compulsory exchange programme before they started university. It's something that could have tremendous benefit if it could be made to work.

Your reaction to this book will be entirely coloured by your own political persuasion. If I have a criticism, it's that Harry's Last Stand... is almost certainly going to be stuck simply preaching to the converted.

[Kenneth · Rating 4 out of 5]

We have forgotten!
Harry and his generation did not endure the hardships of war for us to light a candle, watch ceremonies on TV and repeat clichés in their name. They fought for freedom, democracy and a fairer society for all.
Having survived the depression of the 30's, Harry is able to draw meaningful comparison between today's austerity with its vilification of the poor and the conditions of his childhood as a warning to us on the direction our society is heading.
If we truly want to never forget then we owe it to Harry and others to wake from our stupor and question the erosion of our rights to privacy, freedom, education and healthcare that successive governments have embarked on for the benefit of the elite and big business.
Unfortunately, I suspect that we will not. Enjoy your reality TV and your I-fads folk; your children may not be able to.

[Chris Sampson · Rating 4 out of 5]

An emotive defence of the society denied to us by neoliberalism. Tales from Harry’s 91 years are woven into a fact-of-the-matter narrative of today’s status quo. From upsetting accounts of a hungry childhood in the Great Depression to triumphs of love against the odds. Parallels are drawn between our brutal past and today’s social malaise, with striking effect. Harry’s angry and disturbed, but most of all he’s worried. Is society so inflicted by the wilful myopia and amnesia of government that Britain’s post-war progress will be completely undone? Harry’s seen this before, and we should listen.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ah, the wisdom of those who have lived history. I am only docking a star because 1) it was largely in reference to the problems and politics of the UK, while I am an American. Although, many of the struggles and problems across the pond are very similar if not the same as our own. 2) I don't agree 100% on the extent to which he would like to take the welfare state. In my line of work I see A LOT of abuse of the systems in place to help people like Smith's family growing up. That is not to say we shouldn't have them, but there should be checks and balances on them to ensure the money is being given to those who actually need it most and are not making a "career" out of state benefits.

[Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was ok. I feel a bit harsh only giving it 3 stars but at the end I was left a bit disappointed.

The book doesn't flow too well, it keeps bouncing back and forth in time and repeating itself, or at least that is what it felt like.

Also the book just feels like a rant, this is very little input in how we could get out of the situation that world finds itself in.

Hopefully enough people will read this, wake up and start to fight back, but I don't think that is gonna happen.

[Patrick Carroll · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent polemic on the destruction of the mechanisms that made our society more equal after the depression and WW II. There is a very coherent argument for the "society" that in Margaret Thatcher's mind didn't exist. It is reasonable to assume that there is a point when the majority won't tolerate a minority having control of most of the world's wealth, there have already been glimmers and should it come to a fight then we will all suffer.

[Kc · Rating 5 out of 5]

Schoolchildren should read this book. Social change didn't just happen. Good people with vision fought for it. Harry's final chapter in particular lays out positive ways in which people can take power back into their communities and to serve their communities. Thanks Harry for an excellent reminder of what we stand to lose.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating, a view of present day politics and their effect on ordinary people by a man who has lived through war and privation. His family struggled through the Great Depression and he compares that time with today's austerity measures.

[Debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Memoir, opinions, problems, solutions, history all weaved together in a truly honest way. A true Yorkshireman who tells it like it is. Everyone should pay attention and stand with Harry.

[Lily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absolutely beautiful. Awe-inspiring, thought-provoking, and above all, honest. Please read it. Full review here: http://youtu.be/zO4Yk-dM9SA

[Rob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful, inspiring and spot on in many areas. I want to hold this book above my head and implore people to read it. Especially those in charge of our country.

[Lucy Tregidon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. If you want to see my full review you can find it here:

http://www.abookandabrew.co.vu/2014/0...

[Louise Marriott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably no one left who can write from experience with such authority - not comfortable reading but well written

[Jocco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written, with an important message.

[Gayle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a WW II history fanatic, especially when it comes to the European theater, so when friends suggest a book written about those years or by someone who participated, I find the book. I also lean Socialists and/or Green in my politics and continue to be outraged and embarrassed at the current cruel capitalism America has spread around the world. This is Mr. Harry Smith, a British veteran of WW II, writing from the heart about both.

Harry Smith has experienced firsthand some of the most awful things man can do to man, and some of the best humanity has to offer in his lifetime. As a child during the Great Depression he lived in the slums, foraging for food, working for pennies, and just barely getting by with no help from the government and no way to get medical treatment should he or his family members fall ill.

Then came the war and Harry, like millions around the world, signed up to serve and fight the fascists, in a struggle to save humanity from the likes of Hitler and Mussolini. That willingness to fight for freedom, no matter the social class, triggered a “…vision to build a just and free society for each and every one.” Britain kept her promise to her citizens, setting up many social safety nets such as the National Health Service giving every citizen the right to health care by nationalizing the system, cutting out the profits made on people’s suffering. This is part of the “welfare state,” a connotation that carries fear in the propagandized minds of Americans who associate it with the big, dirty “S” word, but of which the Brits were proud.

Fast forward to today and the creep into the UK of corporate capitalism with its enrichment of the upper classes and austerity forced on everyone else. No, I am not saying had there never been a United States this would never have taken place; there is no way of knowing that. History does record many natural shifts in ideology over the millennia. However, it does seem as goes the US… For example, now that technology forces us into a larger world, American style consumerism at the very least is prevalent worldwide.

Okay, off my soapbox. It’s just that Harry’s observations about the new Britain sound so achingly familiar and it is so terribly sad to hear a vet ask, “At what point does what you give up while fighting a war mean winning it no longer matters?”

ON TERRORISM AND SECURITY
We are told we have nothing to fear if we didn’t do anything wrong, but…”Today they say they are looking for Islamic terrorists, but tomorrow who will the government be putting on their watch list? Environmentalists? Peace activists? Seniors concerned about their pension or the preservation of the NHS? A government’s list of potential threats to its authority gets larger as it leaves more and more of the nation’s citizens disgruntled and disenfranchised.”

ON AMERICA
Power brokers say decline is due to the poor, unemployed, blue-collar, unskilled and immigrants, while the true problem is “…the proverbial cream at the top, whose corporate donors and hired lobbyists perpetuate a society where the minority are granted outrageous entitlements and the cost is borne by a disenfranchised middle class….These subsidies to rich corporations [through tax breaks, etc.] have humbled the United States’ unwritten mission statement that opportunity to succeed should be available to anyone who displays the gumption to work hard and play by the rules. An egalitarian spirit cannot be kept alive in a country that subsidizes the patrician class through tax revenue while everyone else is required to tighten their belts.”


ON BRITAIN, THEN AND NOW
Britain took taking care of her citizens seriously after WW II and set up social safety nets. The largest task, and most successful was the NHS, or National Health System, giving every Brit the right to free or low cost health care. As Mr. Smith grew up dirt poor during the Great Depression, he has a severe example to compare the difference between the “every man for himself” systems to the welfare state. They are just now transitioning to our American system of privatization and it’s not pretty. Although any American could have warned him since we only got a brief respite from FDR, then right back into the fire of capitalism at its very worst, making a profit off the sick. His description of sections of the NHS being privatized… “This act will see the NHS stripped down like a derelict house is for copper wiring.”

The UK also bailed out the banks, and Mr. Smith compares this to the depression times when the rich were saved and everyone else was on his own. The banking crises allowed the pols to enact austerity policies taking away the right to unionize and to have a safe work place with a living wage, and to cut environmental protections, while strengthening the connection between corporations and government. Does this not sound familiar?

Speaking of Halifax today, “I don’t know what happened. I don’t know what became of all those grand dreams and promises made to us by our leaders in 1945. What became of their vision to build a just and free society for each and every one?” [Because the US is the US, we didn’t hear those promises until the 60s with LBJs war on poverty, and which were almost immediately snuffed out by our propensity to stick our noses, and guns, and bombs where they don’t belong. Maybe it was because most of us did not experience the violence that the UK did, or that we have never, since maybe 1812, experienced it up close and personal in our driveways and back yards.]

Education in the UK has gone from free to “OMG! Give me that student loan!” just like the US. And apparently university degrees aren’t worth any more there than here. He also believes if the unemployment and underemployment of these young people, so burdened with debt, does not get fixed soon, they will riot all over the world as they did in 1968. My response to that? “Awesome! Do it!”

As a poor kid he believed that the rich, the government, and even the middle class not only didn’t give a damn, but were so far from his experience “that we resembled ants to them” and that these people “either feared us like we feared TB, or thought us less than human and undeserving of kindness…I had the distinct feeling that they didn’t see me as a boy like them. All they saw was a filthy animal who was worthy of no more attention than a mongrel.” [Sound familiar to anyone? Sure does to me.]

“In the 1940s, 50s, and 60s, we treated poverty and social inequities like we treated polio and other infectious disease: as a threat to mankind’s survival. Leaders like America’s FDR, Truman and Kennedy, and our own prime ministers Attlee, McMillian and Wilson changed the balance of economic power to the middle class. They introduced progressive tax laws that assisted the growth of social programmes and the reduction of poverty.” Sigh…if only.

Mr. Smith’s lament that the common people’s right to dignified life is no longer protected is our lament as well, and is the sad, cruel curse being passed around our land and the rest of the world. Let’s hope the pendulum will swing and the ideas for which 21 M – 25 M soldiers died will prevail soon.

[Alexandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

What can you say about someone's life? This isn't an academic piece to learn from, however this is something we should all read to learn from anyway.
It's not linear, it's as if he's pieces it together as he went along on a chat with someone. There are instances were he's written about one event that has happened, and said how that event reminded him of another event before, or even more chronicalogically mind-bending talks about an event that happened, then goes on to talk about an event that happened later that, when it happened, reminded him of an earlier event.
I think, as honest and natural as that is for a conversation, and this book does feel like Harry Leslie Smith is talking to you, in that way it could have done with a bit of polishing up. Just so readers like me can keep track of all these events in the perspective of the age he experienced them. But, all in all, inconsequential.

There are parts of this book that made me smile, there are parts of this book that made me want to cry. And there are so many parts of this book where Harry Leslie Smith recounts sheere inequality, and it's so relevant today even though some of these things happened years ago, in the 70s, in the 50s and in the 30s. He knew he had priveledge at points in his life, and used that priveldge to try and make the world a better place.

Here was a man who lived through many decades and we were lucky he put down so many of it into book form. We've lost a great source of experience and information.

RIP Harry Leslie Smith

[HadiDee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I remember Smith's article about why he refused to wear a poppy on Remembrance Day. I also enjoyed his occasional articles in The Guardian. This is a collection of those essays. He writes passionately and knowledgeably about life before the welfare state and the NHS - the essay about his sister's death should be read by everyone. His anger as the advances he and his generation fought are eroded, or at risk of being eroded, for is palpable.

Smith died a short while back. RIP and thank you for articulating you fear and anger.