"In the 1930s, my Mum sold her body to pay the rent, to ensure her kids weren't homeless." Capitalism will never be the friend or ally of the working class. Harry Leslie Smith

There is so much the poor must do to stay alive that they find shameful and undignified because capitalism is about exploiting the many to enrich the few. Harry Leslie Smith's The Green and Pleasant is a history of one family's struggle through the hostile terrain of capitalism during the Great Depression. It's a testament to how the Greatest Generation was born in hardship but determined to not only rid the world of fascism but make it livable for all by building a Welfare State. Below is an excerpt from chapter 21. It is a harrowing episode because like then, many in 2024 are in similar circumstances.

Harry Leslie Smith was born on the 25th of this month in 1923. What a span of history he lived through during his 95 years of life. I am glad he died when he did. Six years ago, we had a chance to pull back from the brink and choose not to go into the darkness of fascism. What we are living now will only get worse and it will take more than a generation to change. This Green and Pleasant Land Project that will be completed and ready for a publisher in May is a fantastic testament- not only to him- but every working class person from the Great Depression, who made it loud and clear after WW2- that they weren’t prepared to live short lived lives of misery to ensure the entailed maintained their wealth.

Your support keeping my dad’s legacy going and me alive is greatly appreciated. So if you can please subscribe and if you can’t it is all good because we are fellow travellers in penury.

Chapter 21:

Bill Moxon's butcher business plodded along during the first few months of 1934. Much of the time- his shop was empty of customers. He didn't have a great deal of meat to sell and Moxon was an arsehole to most people who walked in looking to buy something. Without clients, Moxon occupied his time by standing outside and kicking as if it was a football- a pig's' bladder that was filled with water until it burst. Over the course of a day, he went through at least three pigs' bladders as footballs in between gripping about his lack of clientele.

If it weren't for shady dealings in stolen beef, my mother's boyfriend wouldn't have been able to make the rent on his shop or the one-up-one down on King Cross Road he let for himself, mum, my sister, me and our little brother Matthew.

Moxon's business was not sustainable. He lacked the temperament and capital to be a shop owner. It was only a surprise to Moxon that his shop was shuttered around the time my mother found out she was pregnant with his child.

The news she was pregnant didn't sit well with Bill. He was outraged that the Great Depression had knocked him down and left him out of work and in rent debt because of an ill-conceived foray into owning a small business.

Out of money and schemes, Bill buggered off. One morning, after a night out at the pub, he said to Mum, "I’m better off without thee.”

When my mother pleaded with him to stay at least for the sake of his child growing within her. He denied paternity to it and called my mother a whore for becoming pregnant. After his outburst, Moxon got up and left.

The morning he left, Mum looked as shell-shocked as in past moments when Moxon hit her for speaking out of turn.

Mum didn't know what to do without Bill. She had written it into her head since 1930 that Bill was her life raft. Mum had abandoned our father to scramble onto that life raft she thought Bill represented. Mum had made my sister and me deny our father in hopes Bill would care for us like a parent. Mum had been ostracised by her family to be with Bill and in 1934, he abandoned her, pregnant and without means to earn an income.

With Bill gone Mum warned us, "There's nowt in the cupboard. There's nowt left but the workhouse for thee- if I don't fix this. " My mother's warnings that the workhouse was in my future- if our luck didn't change, terrified me. My sister seemed less anxious by threats of the poor house because she was in full-time work at a mill. It did not pay much as she was only 14. But Alberta knew she could afford a room somewhere. Alberta attempted to assure me that, in time, we'd come out safe on our journey through poverty. I wasn't convinced. In my fear of being sent to a workhouse, I began to despise my mother. I blamed Mum for leaving herself and her children vulnerable because I was not mature enough to understand- working class women had few options when it came to surviving.

Without Bill, Mum found respite, or courage, from life without a breadwinner through drink. At the time, I thought it was cowardice and escapism- that drove her down to the pub. I believed she was wasting what little money we had on selfish pleasure, and I openly castigated her for it.

Later, I learned her trips to the pub were a drastic action to keep us together and housed as a family. On occasions, Mum sold herself for rent to men looking for sex. It was not an uncommon thing for working-class women in the 1930s.

Having to exchange sex for money took its toll on my mother's emotional balance. During the day, she suffered from panic attacks, which at the time I thought were simply high dramatics and cries for attention. I didn't know then our housing was paid through letting men shag her against the rough walls of ginnels near the pubs of King Cross.

There were many times when my sister and I hauled our mother from between bins outside our house when she came home blind drunk from the pub. We'd drag our mother indoors and hoped that no neighbour had witnessed her fall or spied us transporting Mum into the house drunk and lifeless. Mum would sleep it off and wake in the morning bitterly angry at herself for scraping rock bottom. 

In January 1935, a few weeks before her pregnancy was due, Mum told us she was leaving King Cross. "I am going to find Bill and fetch him back to us."

 Mum left for Bradford to look for Bill with money scoffed from my piggy bank. She busted it open with a butter knife held in a hand overcome by desperation. "You'll be right as rain- because you can make more of it."

Thanks for reading and supporting my substack. It’s an SOS because the end of the month approaches. Your support keeps me housed and also allows me to preserve the legacy of Harry Leslie Smith. !!0 yearly subscriptions will cover much of next months’s rent. Your subscriptions are so important to my personal survival because like so many others who struggle to keep afloat, my survival is a precarious daily undertaking. The fight to keep going was made worse- thanks to getting cancer along with lung disease and other co- morbidities which makes life more difficult to combat in these cost of living crisis times. So if you can join with a paid subscription which is just 3.50 a month or a yearly subscription or a gift subscription. I promise the content is good, relevant and thoughtful. Take Care, John