I leave him to you at his beginning- finding love during a time of occupation.

Bit by bit, the cost of living crisis steals everything from our humanity-even the means for sentimentality.

Gone, for me, are the days of buying flowers or eating special meals in remembrance on the anniversaries of the birth or death of a loved one. It doesn't really matter because no matter how brutal austerity is today, it still can't rob us of our memories of yesterday.

Dad died six years ago in the early morning hours of November 28th. Like his birth in Barnsley during the winter of 1923, his death was long and laborious.

His ashes rest, in a box, on the floor, a few feet from the table I now write this post to you. Later on I will have a moment or two for reflection which will come during my afternoon walk.

But most of the ticking moments that I have left in this day are reserved for hustling together the remaining few hundred dollars of my rent. I still want to forestall joining my dead sooner rather than later.

My father's interior and exterior narration of his journey across the night and day of existence ended when his eyes flashed one final blast of life and then went dark. The years that followed it has been me speaking for him, promoting him, and keeping him relevant.

So what better day, to let him live again in other people's imagination at a time in his life when peace in Europe had come. Then Harry's journey in life was just beginning and the sorrow of poverty was ending because Britain was building a Welfare State so everyone was allowed to share in the nation's prosperity.

From his unfinished The Green and Pleasant Land.

Love in the time of occupation.

When peace came to Europe in the Spring of 1945, it was not quiet. It was loud, chaotic, imperfect, and sometimes deadly. But it was a damn sight better than war for most of us.

Even the Germans didn't complain, or at least not to their occupiers about the peace, despite their hardships, hunger, and grief. They took this state of peace as it came and set to the task of reclaiming their shattered communities that had been bombed back into the dark ages.

At the beginning of my stint in Hamburg as part of the RAF occupation forces, I thought Germans were evil. I distrusted and despised the lot of them.

I hated them for the Holocaust. I despise them for the suffering they caused in Holland and all of the nations they conquered., I loathed them for causing mates of mine to die miserable deaths in combat.

My enmity for Germans was also the official policy of the Allies. Britain, France, Soviet Russia and America agreed that Germany must be militarily neutered and stripped of its industrial might. Its citizens were to be reduced to agricultural chattel to prevent them from ever again becoming a military threat to the civilised world.

But my rancour against ordinary Germans didn't last long because I wasn't blind to the suffering they endured all around me.

During the summer of 1945, the streets of Hamburg were rife with refugees, orphans, and spivs. Each of their lives were as cheap as chips. On every street corner, the human comedy of corruption, greed, and raw desperation played out as people tried to keep afloat in this brutal post-war world.

In Hamburg like the entirety of occupied Germany, everything was for sale from sex to family heirlooms and the only currencies accepted were cigarettes, coffee or precious metal.

Whether a German lived or died depended on luck because misfortune was always one step ahead of the defeated master race. And the Germans of Hamburg knew that because the corpses of 50 thousand of their compatriots still lay entombed under the bomb rubble of their city caused by the RAF and the USAF's bombing missions against it.

It didn't seem right that in the epicentre of so much destruction and hunger, I voted for the first time in a British General Election. But Churchill's coalition government collapsed shortly after the war. The people of Britain were ready for a peacetime government that could deliver a new deal to the ordinary citizen.

The majority of the country cast a ballot for the Labour Party, including me. We made our choice and loudly said, it was our turn to be at the tiller of government. The few would no longer enslave the many into a lifetime of poverty and hopelessness. My vote in the summer of 1945 was a demand to live my life with dignity and purpose. It was something that before the war with Hitler the entitled didn't think we deserved because they had and never will have respect for humans who don't possess their wealth.

Still, Clement Atlee's absolute victory over Churchill, the patrician class, and the old order didn't spur me to leave Germany and resume my life as a manager at Grubbs greengrocers because the owner informed me by letter that my place in the firm was now occupied by a conscientious objector while I was away in uniform.

The government might have changed, but the way of doing business hadn't. So it was best to bide my time in the RAF. Besides, my sister wrote that despite the change in government, rationing was still in effect, housing was non-existent and the north of England was a dog-eat-dog world for anyone who wasn't well connected.

Most of my mates welcomed being demobbed but I didn't.

Robbie certainly did and left at the first chance. He went home without illusions but was still happy to bugger off.

"If you ever get to Wigan, he told me. You know you've taken the wrong turn."

His departure reinforced my conviction that I didn't want to return to Halifax without a plan for my future.

As more and more of my mates departed, I began to explore Hamburg alone when I was off duty. I stumbled through the ruins, overwhelmed by the hunger, the dirt, and the simple despair of ordinary folk.

One day in August, I came upon a makeshift black market where German civilians bartered heirlooms for bread and meat and the chance to survive another day. In the crowd, I noticed a woman who made my heart and head stumble in aroused confusion. Her stance, look of defiance and grace made her appear to me like she was in Technicolor while everyone else around her was in sepia tone.

Rashly, I barged into that young woman’s life and used what little German I knew to introduce myself to her. On a girlish whim, because I seemed harmless, she graciously let me know her name. She was called Friede, and she allowed me to walk her to the apartment where she lived with her mother and an elderly couple who had been left homeless because of the war.

I must have left a favourable impression because she agreed to meet me for a picnic the following week.

At first, I took her on innocent picnics. I snatched food and wine from the RAF mess hut for our meals. I believed I was being cavalier. I thought Friede might even consider me cosmopolitan when I lit our cigarettes like Paul Henreid for Bette Davis, in the movie Now, Voyager. She only smiled or laughed lightheartedly at my decorum. Initially, I didn’t understand that she lived in a completely different world than mine. Her universe had more immediate problems and concerns than if the wine was chilled. After a while, I began to understand that her community was in serious trouble and was suffering from a severe lack of food and medicine.

It was during an afternoon lunch on the banks of the Alster River that some of her real misfortunes and sorrow crept up on me. While she sunned her bare legs, I noticed they were covered in tiny blisters and ulcers. Friede registered my awkward stare and smiled.

‘We have no vitamins, liebchen. There’s nothing left to eat: all of Germany will die from scurvy like we are on a polar expedition.’

‘Why don’t you have any vitamins?’

Friede explained that for most Germans, the last year of the war had been difficult. Their cities suffered round-the-clock bombardment, while the Allied armies began a massive land offensive against their nation. In the final months of the war, food supplies for ordinary citizens ran out. Friede and her family lived off a soup that tasted like rainwater and ate bread made from animal feed.

‘After the Russians crossed the Oder River in January 1945,’ Friede explained, ‘everyone knew the war was lost. It was only a matter of time before we were given a taste of our medicine. I was terrified because I didn’t know who our new masters would be: Russia or America?’

‘It was a good thing we Brits got here first before the Russians could get their hands on Hamburg.’ .

Friede laughed at my simplistic response and retorted.

‘It is sometimes hard to tell if Britain is the best jailer. You British treat everyone as if they are Nazis and deserve to be punished.’

‘How do we do this?’

Friede looked at me and smirked.

‘Our rations are table scraps for a dog. People are expected to remove rubble from the cities but are allotted just 1,200 calories of nutrition per day. Britain keeps my people on the edge of starvation. Have you seen the bread they give us?’

I had seen Germans queue impatiently for this almost inedible food. At one time, I had even witnessed soldiers toss dense bricks of blackened dough to hungry crowds. It was a miserable ration to feed anyone. The ingredients were a dubious mixture of sawdust and salt, with a trace amount of flour that bonded together the indigestible product. The bread was baked in the morning and if you didn’t consume it by late afternoon, a thick green mould would burrow its way to the crust. Sometimes, I caught sight of vagrants in the shadow of bomb-damaged buildings who had somehow got their hands on the thick, rotten bread. Famished, they would stuff it into their mouths and wash it back with water scooped from the street gutters.

Friede said that many believed the victors treated Germany like they did in 1918. ‘

The Allies will let the German people starve to death.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Unless you are wealthy, you can’t buy food anywhere in the city. Mutti must travel north up into the countryside. She sells our belongings to the farmers who give her a few eggs and a rotting turnip in exchange. How will we live once all of her jewels and silver are gone? Mutti says the farmers act like pirates. They have no pity on the city folk and will rob you of everything you own for a morsel of food. People say the farmers are rich from the city’s misery and have Persian carpets in their pigsties.’

Afterwards, I thought my invitation to lunch by the river seemed nothing more than a cynical gesture. I blamed myself for not understanding her difficulties sooner because I had endured a similar hunger in my childhood.

My growing affection for Friede drove me to become a conspirator in her survival. I obtained food for Friede and her family by the old and reliable methods my mother had taught me: if you can’t buy it, beg for it, and if you can’t beg for it, nick it while God and the holy ghosts are down at the pub. So, from storage units on our base, I snatched anything I thought useful to them, from food rations to soap and medicine. I wrapped the contraband in a blanket and smuggled it out of camp in a haversack.

Perhaps I was correcting the wrong done to me as a starving boy? Perhaps, I was buying love and loyalty with a loaf of bread? I didn’t know or care. I knew winter was coming and without someone like me, her family would starve to death like thousands of other Germans, hobbled by this devastating war.

Looking back, I think the start of our romance – the picnics by the river, the afternoons spent loitering in riverfront cafés – were just a pleasant diversion for Friede and her friends. They were an excuse to eat delicacies and savour flavours long absent from an ordinary German’s diet. In the beginning, Friede didn’t appreciate the ardour of my passion but enjoyed my diligence and loyalty in trying to please her ordinary desires and satisfy her most basic needs. I was able to provide Friede with food and protection in a nation that had been cast out of civilisation. It was my sheer persistence to keep her sated and healthy with purloined wine, preserves and medicine that allowed me to ingratiate myself with her. I transformed our relationship from the formal Sie to the more hopeful and friendly du.

It was easy for me to fall in love with Friede because she was as glamorous as a movie star. She had deep, expressive hazel eyes, and raven hair that hung voluptuously to her shoulders. Her face was sensuous. It was at times, mysterious as it expressed deep emotions and indefinable longing that I was not yet trusted to share with her.

With my background of poverty, infidelity and family betrayal, Friede was everything I couldn’t aspire to in England. Her education, taste, and style were vastly more sophisticated than my Woolworth’s tuppence upbringing. Being arm-in-arm with her, I felt like a lead character in a Saturday morning movie serial. I fell hard for Friede and plunged into the deep end of German life under occupation. Yet the bottomless, almost un-navigable water of love in a ruined nation was my best option for a better future. It was better than returning to a wet and dreary existence in Britain.

Unfortunately, Friede wasn’t as easily convinced of my long-term suitability as either suitor or provider. In the beginning, my loyalty and my love were chided as unproven and childish fancy. Besides, she said.

‘Tommies come and go; you too will leave for England and go back to your English girlfriend.’

I protested, but she was right – my time in the RAF was nigh. The demobilisation of soldiers and airmen was moving at a steady pace. If I didn’t act quickly, I was going to find myself demobbed and marching in a victory parade leading me right back into the shit life I came from. If I truly loved Friede, as I so often claimed after a half-bottle of Riesling, I would have to find a means to remain in Germany. My only option was to extend my services with the RAF.

The times we live in are unforgiving for the skint, especially now that Musk has weaponised X for the Nazis. My reach despite having 141k followers is non-existent. The algorithms have stolen the wind from my posts to reach as many followers as possible. Right now all I have for communicating with a larger audience is this Substack which I am grateful for. But as the time grows closer to rent day anxiety runs in my head that is as loud as tinnitus.

Your subscriptions and tips are so important to my personal survival. With 211 paid subscribers it is a key component to paying my rent. There is a current shortfall of $500 Canadian which is around £280 or USD 350, in my rent. Some of this should correct itself by the 30th through incoming subscriptions but sometimes that doesn't happen.

Like many me remaining housed is a precarious daily undertaking. Yearly subscriptions will cover much of next month’s rent because- all I need is 8 to make December’s payment. But this is important, the ask is only for those who can afford it because nobody should go without. The tips you have provided have been so very helpful as well. I believe the content being produced here has the worth you have invested in it with your time and financial support.

Take Care, John