A Moment That Changed Me.

I am not a writer but I do know how to write. Problem is, that I don't tick a lot of boxes that make a newspaper editor take notice when an essay of mine reaches their email. You see writing good copy is probably the least important criteria to getting your work into a newspaper.

The same was true of my dad. In 2013, my dad certainly wasn't considered worthy of being published by the Guardian. When "Is Cameron's Britain what we fought in the war for" was pitched, it was received with disdainful silence. I said, "fuck em," and approached the New Left Project, when my dad's essay on Cameron's Britain wasn't published by the Guardian. They loved it, and it went viral on their news site. That's when something interesting happened. The Guardian suddenly thought the essay was publishable. So, they ran it in their Comments section. That is how my dad's relationship with the Guardian began. Between the year's 2013 to his death in 2018, he wrote over 40 essays for them. But as his support for Corbyn became anathema in Guardian circles, his essays became less frequent, until like it began in 2013, they were silent to his pitches.

It's why I was not surprised that when I recently submitted a piece for their Moment that Changed me section, I received no response from them. I know. I know. What was I thinking? I just thought that because the first A Moment that Changed me, the Guardian published was from my dad about meeting my mum in post-war-ravaged Hamburg, mine about my brother's death spurring me on to repurpose my dad into Harry's Last Stand might strike some interest. Surely I thought, a newspaper that commissioned, when my dad died, an essay by a senior writer at the Guardian titled "He was like a grandfather to me" might have someone monitoring their great essay slush pile that remembered the "World's Oldest rebel?

It doesn't matter. I am happy I wrote the piece, and now, I offer it up to you for your consideration. And like, I said in 2013 when the Guardian didn't accept his pitch for Is Cameron's Britain's What We Fought for in the war, "Fuck em."

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In 2008, I was 45, divorced and considered myself very lucky because I had survived a severe heart attack three years previous. There was a natural order to my life, and I felt optimistic for the future because I had a small but growing wine and spirits agency. All was good with my family because, after many years of turmoil, my elder brother Peter who had struggled with schizophrenia, was stable and beginning to receive recognition as a visual artist. Even my dad seemed to finally shake himself from the grief of losing my mum in 1999. After 15 years of familial upheavals, from death, mental health and physical issues, life seemed to be getting back onto an even keel for me and those I cared for most. Life was good, and an opportunity arose because of my wine and spirit agency to move to Portugal. I suggested my dad join me in a late-life adventure in the Algarve because he was at a loose end and in perfect health at the age of eighty-six. He agreed, and we upped sticks for Albufeira. For six months, my dad and I lived a rather idyllic existence in Portugal. And, then, one day, my brother Peter called us to say he had been recently diagnosed with a rapid onset of pulmonary fibrosis and that he was gravely ill. My father and I immediately returned to Canada and became his caregivers.

We did our best, but bad luck befell my brother, and his lungs collapsed in September of that year. My brother was kept alive in an ICU ward with a ventilator that acted as his lungs for six weeks. My dad and I kept vigil at my Peter's bedside until in mid-October, Peter asked for his ventilator to be turned off, so that he could die. Peter's death at the age of 50 devasted both my dad and me. We returned in grief to Portugal, hoping to resume our carefree life there. But our sorrow was too great, and our world had soured over my brother's death. My dad and I were broken men. My dad gave up the will to live and almost died from a blood clot in his leg. I brought him home to Canada and resolved that I would find a way to quell his sorrow and return a sense of purpose to his life. I suggested he begin writing the story of his life in Great Depression-era Yorkshire. With my help and encouragement, my dad wrote the story of his life. But as he was an unknown author, his first books had to be self-published. I convinced my dad to join social media and write more books. Eventually, people began to take notice, and my father became a much loved contributing writer for the Guardian and the author of the best selling Harry's Last Stand. From 2014 until he died in 2018, my dad inspired many in Britain through his speeches at the Labour Party conference. My dad found new energy and enthusiasm for life through his speaking tours, his defence of refugees and his undying advocacy for an NHS that was free at the point of use for all residents of Britain.

After my dad died, I reflected that my sorrow over my brother's death was an impetus to repurpose my father and make him feel that his life hadn't been in vain because he had outlived a son. My dad and I used the flames of our grief over Peter's passing to make a positive contribution to the betterment of society. Harry Leslie Smith the world's oldest rebel wouldn't have come to pass without the sad death of my brother Peter and my determination that good would come out of my brother's tragic end.