Stand Up and Be Counted
Harry Leslie Smith, Harry's Last Stand: How the World My Generation Built is Falling Down, and What We Can Do To Save It
Icon Books, 224pp, £8.99, ISBN 9781848317369
reviewed by Stephen Lee Naish
Over the next few months, publication of books, essays, and articles related to British politics will skyrocket as writers, politicians, and pundits from the left, right and centre battle it out in the run up to the general election in May of this year. The party conferences have already been in full swing, the whips will be working overtime to pull their party dissenters back into line, backstabbing and tit for tat will be rife across the nation, political leaders once again will debate together on live television, and this election promises to be as vociferous and contentious as 2010. Exciting for sure, but without doubt, uncertain times lay ahead. The critical issue of this particular campaign trail revolves around a specific question: is anyone even interested in politics anymore? Do the majority of the population care to listen to politicians lie and deceive the public? A public discourse on the left and right has been initiated to counter the swindles of the political elites, but, either way, will it, or can it ever work? In November 2013 The Guardian newspaper published an essay entitled ‘This Year I Will Wear a Poppy for the Last Time’ by a 91-year-old former soldier and retired carpet importer, Harry Leslie Smith. In the essay Harry declared that:
This piece became a viral sensation, shared via Facebook and Twitter over 60,000 times, and spoke volumes about the public dissatisfaction with politics and war. However, Harry Smith is far from the kind of viral superstar you'd find on the likes of Vine.com. The gist of his essay, and now his book, Harry's Last Stand: How the World My Generation Built is Falling Down and What We Can Do to Save It, cannot be summed up in a seven-second skit, for it is a message that spans nearly a century of living through one of the most turbulent, yet defining eras in British history. Harry's Last Stand is part memoir, part political thesis of how the UK, and in some respects the Western world, is heading back towards the same situation to which Harry once lived through. As he states: ‘I am not an historian, but at 91 I am history, and I fear its repetition.’ The book is his testament to a life that began in the worst, and least hopeful, of circumstances, yet was improved, by some luck on Harry's part, and by the establishment of a fair and free healthcare and welfare system. That this system is now under attack from the conservative right is the real subject of Harry Smith's book. His heartfelt plea for a cohesive response to the challenges against our National Health Service, our welfare state, and our education system, it is also an embittered retort to the corporations, banks, and politicians who have ransacked the nation for the profit of the 1%, leaving the other 99% reeling in debt and uncertainty.
Born in 1923 in the impoverished slums of Barnsley, Yorkshire, Harry Smith's early life is a story of survival in the most decrepit of times. The Great Depression had ravaged the UK's economic output, unemployment was widespread, disease and malnutrition was rife among the young and old. Orwell best witnessed and described this suffering in his 1937 chronicle, The Road to Wigan Pier. The North of England was a wasteland of poverty, hardship, and sickness. Harry's father scraped together an existence of sorts for his family as a coal miner. His mother, hardened by want, but a practical person by all accounts, insured that a daily healthy meal was provided for the young Harry and his two sisters by selling family heirlooms to top up their father's meagre earnings. Tragedy, however, struck early when his elder sister Marion died of tuberculosis, an efficient killer of the poor of Britain in those days. The family moved to Bradford in hopes of finding work, after Harry's father was let go at the mine. Later, his mother kicked his father out of the house for being unable to provide for his family during the unemployment slump of the Depression. His father died in a workhouse not long after, while his mother married another in the hopes of better circumstances for her family. The advent of Second World War, however, changed the nation's outlook. Young men went off to fight all over the world. Gone for years on end, they banded together regardless of class or privilege, they were a unified nation away from home, fighting for a common goal. Whilst the wives, girlfriends and daughters of the servicemen worked the factories and kept the war machine well-oiled at home. When the men returned victorious, the slum dwellings, bad healthcare, scarce food, and lack of work, were hardly a vision of triumph in the eyes of the returning servicemen. A political shift was imminent, and the transformation came from the voices of the working class. Clement Atlee's Labour Party victory implemented a seismic change of fortunes in almost every aspect of working class life. Most importantly, the availability of free health care for all. In Harry's own words, ‘for the first time in my civilian life I went to a doctor's surgery and was treated for bronchitis with antibiotics that assured me a speedy and safe recovery.’ New subsidised housing replaced the slums, education was vastly improved and expanded so everyone from any background could compete within the job market.
It took decades to complete, but the overwhelming feeling was that the playing field had been levelled somewhat, and quality of life was improved overall. The country had come of age: an impression that lasted until Margaret Thatcher's tenure as Prime Minister, during which she declared that society did not exist and spent her time effectively dismantling it; an opus continued under Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron and Clegg.
The ultimate triumph of Harry's Last Stand is to weave an evocative thread that constructs an appalling modern history in which all the freedoms and entitlements that are available to us now, were simply absent. We have, over the decades since The Great Depression, worked and fought too hard to simply hand over our wellbeing to corporate and financial interests, where profit is more important than the welfare of the people. Harry’s narrative builds a powerful assertion: we simply cannot go back to the time when the working class, and the poor, were subjected to devastating poverty.
Harry's Last Stand strikes a balance between two other recent books that call out corruption and yearn for a better world: Owen Jones' The Establishment: And How They Get Away With It (Allen Lane, 2014) and Russell Brand's Revolution (Century, 2014). I would call this loose collection a literary trifecta of working class rage; for, despite their current success, the authors of these books know well what it means to be from British working class stock. Both Owen Jones and Russell Brand's books offer a discourse on current political scenes in Britain. Jones' book comes from the pen of an angry left commentator, whilst Brand's book is from the perspective of celebrity disillusionment with the political elite and established order of things. In comparison, Harry Smith's book offers us optimism via a democratic response from the working class and to ‘punish politicians who refuse to heed our calls for economic and social justice through the ballot box.’ Whilst Brand says ‘don't vote’, Harry says ‘most definitely do’. Despite his age, it is a triumph on his part that his writing has so far engaged with a younger reader. His honesty and sincerity are key to this. Jones and Brand can spin a good yarn about poverty and class rage, but what they can't offer is the brutal experience of growing up with absolute destitution all around, seeing that dissipate and be replaced by prosperity – only for the politics of inequality to return once more. Harry Leslie Smith has reached across the cultural, social, political, and generational divide to offer us a route towards a real social democracy, one that is absolutely possible, because Harry once witnessed it himself.
I will no longer allow my obligation as a veteran to remember those who died in the great wars to be co-opted by current or former politicians to justify our folly in Iraq, our morally dubious war on terror and our elimination of one's right to privacy.
This piece became a viral sensation, shared via Facebook and Twitter over 60,000 times, and spoke volumes about the public dissatisfaction with politics and war. However, Harry Smith is far from the kind of viral superstar you'd find on the likes of Vine.com. The gist of his essay, and now his book, Harry's Last Stand: How the World My Generation Built is Falling Down and What We Can Do to Save It, cannot be summed up in a seven-second skit, for it is a message that spans nearly a century of living through one of the most turbulent, yet defining eras in British history. Harry's Last Stand is part memoir, part political thesis of how the UK, and in some respects the Western world, is heading back towards the same situation to which Harry once lived through. As he states: ‘I am not an historian, but at 91 I am history, and I fear its repetition.’ The book is his testament to a life that began in the worst, and least hopeful, of circumstances, yet was improved, by some luck on Harry's part, and by the establishment of a fair and free healthcare and welfare system. That this system is now under attack from the conservative right is the real subject of Harry Smith's book. His heartfelt plea for a cohesive response to the challenges against our National Health Service, our welfare state, and our education system, it is also an embittered retort to the corporations, banks, and politicians who have ransacked the nation for the profit of the 1%, leaving the other 99% reeling in debt and uncertainty.
Born in 1923 in the impoverished slums of Barnsley, Yorkshire, Harry Smith's early life is a story of survival in the most decrepit of times. The Great Depression had ravaged the UK's economic output, unemployment was widespread, disease and malnutrition was rife among the young and old. Orwell best witnessed and described this suffering in his 1937 chronicle, The Road to Wigan Pier. The North of England was a wasteland of poverty, hardship, and sickness. Harry's father scraped together an existence of sorts for his family as a coal miner. His mother, hardened by want, but a practical person by all accounts, insured that a daily healthy meal was provided for the young Harry and his two sisters by selling family heirlooms to top up their father's meagre earnings. Tragedy, however, struck early when his elder sister Marion died of tuberculosis, an efficient killer of the poor of Britain in those days. The family moved to Bradford in hopes of finding work, after Harry's father was let go at the mine. Later, his mother kicked his father out of the house for being unable to provide for his family during the unemployment slump of the Depression. His father died in a workhouse not long after, while his mother married another in the hopes of better circumstances for her family. The advent of Second World War, however, changed the nation's outlook. Young men went off to fight all over the world. Gone for years on end, they banded together regardless of class or privilege, they were a unified nation away from home, fighting for a common goal. Whilst the wives, girlfriends and daughters of the servicemen worked the factories and kept the war machine well-oiled at home. When the men returned victorious, the slum dwellings, bad healthcare, scarce food, and lack of work, were hardly a vision of triumph in the eyes of the returning servicemen. A political shift was imminent, and the transformation came from the voices of the working class. Clement Atlee's Labour Party victory implemented a seismic change of fortunes in almost every aspect of working class life. Most importantly, the availability of free health care for all. In Harry's own words, ‘for the first time in my civilian life I went to a doctor's surgery and was treated for bronchitis with antibiotics that assured me a speedy and safe recovery.’ New subsidised housing replaced the slums, education was vastly improved and expanded so everyone from any background could compete within the job market.
It took decades to complete, but the overwhelming feeling was that the playing field had been levelled somewhat, and quality of life was improved overall. The country had come of age: an impression that lasted until Margaret Thatcher's tenure as Prime Minister, during which she declared that society did not exist and spent her time effectively dismantling it; an opus continued under Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron and Clegg.
The ultimate triumph of Harry's Last Stand is to weave an evocative thread that constructs an appalling modern history in which all the freedoms and entitlements that are available to us now, were simply absent. We have, over the decades since The Great Depression, worked and fought too hard to simply hand over our wellbeing to corporate and financial interests, where profit is more important than the welfare of the people. Harry’s narrative builds a powerful assertion: we simply cannot go back to the time when the working class, and the poor, were subjected to devastating poverty.
To build a culture that is based upon tolerance, fairness, equality and a decent standard of living for all is not simply a matter of giving governments the legislative tools to generate revenues through taxations. There is more to a great nation than having a good set of books and an eye for finance. It is about shared values, history and a common destiny.
Harry's Last Stand strikes a balance between two other recent books that call out corruption and yearn for a better world: Owen Jones' The Establishment: And How They Get Away With It (Allen Lane, 2014) and Russell Brand's Revolution (Century, 2014). I would call this loose collection a literary trifecta of working class rage; for, despite their current success, the authors of these books know well what it means to be from British working class stock. Both Owen Jones and Russell Brand's books offer a discourse on current political scenes in Britain. Jones' book comes from the pen of an angry left commentator, whilst Brand's book is from the perspective of celebrity disillusionment with the political elite and established order of things. In comparison, Harry Smith's book offers us optimism via a democratic response from the working class and to ‘punish politicians who refuse to heed our calls for economic and social justice through the ballot box.’ Whilst Brand says ‘don't vote’, Harry says ‘most definitely do’. Despite his age, it is a triumph on his part that his writing has so far engaged with a younger reader. His honesty and sincerity are key to this. Jones and Brand can spin a good yarn about poverty and class rage, but what they can't offer is the brutal experience of growing up with absolute destitution all around, seeing that dissipate and be replaced by prosperity – only for the politics of inequality to return once more. Harry Leslie Smith has reached across the cultural, social, political, and generational divide to offer us a route towards a real social democracy, one that is absolutely possible, because Harry once witnessed it himself.