Hearing my dad's voice from a podcast he taped long ago is bittersweet. But today, I found this on my computer in files marked Dad. The audio is from the end of 2017 when my dad Harry Leslie Smith Christmas talked about today's austerity and the austerity he endured as a boy in the 1930s. He taped this podcast a few weeks after returning home from his Don't Let My Past Be Your Future book tour. It was mid-December.
By Christmas of that year, my dad was sick with pneumonia. It was with him on and off until he died in November of 2018. This podcasts of his is an important historical document considering that it is the voice of a man born a hundred years ago in February 1923 who endured the Great Depression, was in the RAF during the Second World War and helped build the post-war Welfare State that allowed millions to have a life worth living. The podcast is sad and devastating. But it is also important to remember whether it was my dad in those long ago harsh times or me in these present harsh times. Existence for the poor has an abundance of despair in their daily grind. But there are also moments of joy, grace and humour. He found them as a boy in growing up in the mean streets of Barnsley, Bradford and then Halifax. In my way I find those moments too because there is much to enjoy or savour- even when you are living on the edge of financial ruin with diminished health.
Thank you for reading another post from me at Harry’s Last Stand and this podcast. Your subscriptions help preserve the working class legacy of Harry Leslie Smith, “The World’s Oldest Rebel.” I was my dad’s carer and co-conspirator in his Last Stand project that lasted from 2010-2018 and comprised 5 books, hundreds of essays, and tens of thousands of miles travelled. His history is everyone’s history whose ancestors lived in the harsh times before the Welfare State, and came from the working class. Those times are coming back so preserving the works of my dad’s Last Stand are so important now. His fight is our fight. Remember if you can make your subscription paid but if you can’t it’s all good because times are tough and if you are here, you are fighting for the same things as me. Take Care, John
Hear Harry Leslie Smith's voice talk about austerity in the 21st century and his Christmas Past in Yorkshire 1930. It's no Captain Tom Yuletide.