Harry's Last Stand

This is an excerpt from the book that I am writing about Harry Leslie Smith, my father. It is about the last 10 years of his life as well as the cancer I was diagnosed with after he died.

The son of Harry Leslie Smith and keeper of his legacy talks about his cancer diagnosis, almost a year to the day of when his father died.

Epilogue to Harry's Leslie Smith's Podcast Harry's Last Stand. A summing up and perhaps a continuation.

In the snug of a pub while the storms of austerity batter Britain, I chat with you about the effects of poverty during the Great Depression when the Yuletide was a time of despair, for those struggling to stay alive in a world corrupted by greed.

Our world is much like the world of my youth;we are all working the coal face for pennies a day. Our wages are flat but our expenses are rising while hope for a better tomorrow is diminishing. Don't ever think Conservatives can save us from destitution because their ideology and greed is what is making us poor.

Harry Leslie Smith reads from his recently published book Don't Let My Past Be Your Future Britain is at its most dangerous juncture since Harry's youth - the NHS and social housing are in crisis, whilst Brexit and an unpopular government continue to divide the country - but there is hope. Just as Clement Attlee provided hope in 1945, Labour's triumphant comeback of June 2017 is a beacon of light in this season of discontent. Britain has overcome adversity before and will do so again - a new nation will be forged from the ashes of grave injustice.

I have lived almost 100 years and I am approaching the long night of nonexistence, but I am not afraid because I have survived much turmoil: the Great Depression, the second world war, the cold war, the deaths of friends and also the hardest blows to my spirit, the passing of my beloved wife and middle son. But now, as time dwindles down like a clock with an ageing battery, my heart still beats strong, content and free of rancour because of one single event that changed my life and forged a thousand moments of joy for me.

Citizens of Hamburg going about their business in the streets, surrounded by bomb sites and a wrecked building with smoke still pouring from it in about 1943

‘When off duty, I stumbled through the ruins of Hamburg, overwhelmed by the hunger, the dirt, and the simple despair of ordinary folk.’ It was there I met the woman who became my wife 70 years ago on August 16, 1947 in the shadow of that shattered German city.

Until Labour came to government in 1945, I couldn’t believe that the working class would ever be treated as equal citizens in a society run for the benefit of the 1%. But the creation of the NHS changed my mind. When Labour established the NHS, I felt for the first time to be included in democracy and valued as a citizen by my government.

We are a nation unhappily and unfairly divided by wealth and privilege.It seems people died in Grenfell because they just weren’t wealthy enough to warrant proper safety considerations. That’s just not right, it’s not the Britain we deserve, it’s not the Britain my generation wanted to build in 1945 when it lay in ruins from war and centuries of oppression by the entitled.

On June 8th, you have to rise up and be counted because you are worth more than flat wages. You are worth more than eternal austerity. You are worth more than hard Brexit. You are worth more than student debt and zero hour contracts. You are worth more than the greed of the 1% and the incompetence of the Tories. Within you is the blood of your grandparents and great grandparents that sacrificed their lives on the battle fields of Europe and Asia. Within you is the DNA of all your ancestors who fought for the rights of women to vote. Within you is the echo of all those who battled for their right to an NHS that provided health care to all not just the well to do. Within you is the spark to become the greatest generation of the 21st century. So, I ask you as a very old man who has seen Britain at its worst and greatest to stand strong and send the Tories Packing because you deserve a future that has hope, prosperity and purpose.