National Service, The Boomers final Betrayal of the Greatest Generation.

Rishi Sunak's bold vision for 21st-century Britain, low taxes for the rich and no social services for the ordinary, now includes national service for the nation's eighteen-year-olds. It is an idea that although appalling may have more closet supporters than expected. Introducing authoritarianism is going to be the Baby Boomers last betrayal of their parents’, “Blood, Sweat and Tears” to rid Europe of Nazism.

Reintroducing national service is just the ticket to speed up the 1% dictatorship of society. If enacted, it calms the old grumpy ones in pubs who engorged by entitlement are outraged by disaffected youth who rightly question why they have been denied a fair and decent future. It herds the young into a prescribed discipline that is strong on propaganda and bereft of critical thinking. It is neoliberalism’s best answer to quell anger over genocide in Gaza, the climate crisis, the housing crisis and the cost of living crisis.

Sunak will lose this election. But if the national service idea polls well enough, you should be terrified because a new Labour government just may run with it.

My dad did his National Service from 1941-1948. He didn't believe that his time in the RAF made him a better citizen or more civic-minded because he knew that didn't come from regimentation. Believing in preserving society and doing good by it came from living in a Welfare State.

Below is a further instalment from the Green & Pleasant Land- the book my Dad was working on before his death. So far, you have travelled from Harry Leslie Smith’s birth in 1923 until 1941. During that year, my Dad entered RAF Padgate to join the war effort, which is today’s reading from the work.

The Harry’s Last Stand project, which I worked on with my Dad, for the last 10 years of his life, was an attempt to use his life story as a template to effect change and remake a Welfare State fit for the 21st century. His unpublished history- The Green & Pleasant Land is a part of that project. I have been working on it, refining it, and editing it to meet my dad’s wishes. It should be ready for a publisher sometime in June- as I want the last instalment on here to be his eye witness account of the 1945 General Election. It will be an interesting contrast to what is offered for Britain by today’s Labour in this summer’s General Election.

Your support in keeping my dad’s legacy going, and me alive is greatly appreciated. I depend on your subscriptions to keep the lights on and me housed. So if you can, please subscribe, and if you can’t -it is all good because we are fellow travellers in penury. But always remember to share these posts far and wide.

Chapter twenty-seven:

I was sent to another room to strip from my civilian clothes and then I put on my RAF blue serge uniform. I left the building transformed from grocer's assistant to participant in a war against Hitler.

It happened so quickly and irrevocably, but from the moment I wore my rough, woollen RAF kit, life had irrevocably changed for me. My fate was now owned by the RAF. But I was no fool because under the rules of capitalism in the early 20th century I knew from years of poverty, my destiny was always in the hands of someone other than me. Free will is not granted to the poor despite it being one of democracy's greatest pretences.

I turned in all directions. I swung round to all degrees of the compass wondering what I was to do next. Where was I to go? I was not alone in my disorientation because other newly uniformed teenagers performed the same movements as me.

My disorientation ended when a sergeant charged at us bellowing. “Get a move on, you lazy lot, on the double and follow me.”

We were led to a pile of dry straw heaped up underneath a raised tarpaulin- to keep it dry from the rain.

There, we each grabbed an empty palliasse and stuffed them with straw, as this was our mattress during our time at Padgate.

Once done, we were marched to our sleeping quarters- a Nissan Hut.

 Inside I hastily found a cot with thin wire springs and dropped my pailiasses down on it. When I sat on it, my bed sunk into a curve with the inconsequential weight placed upon it.

I stood up when another recruit took possession of the cot beside mine and introduced himself.

His name was Robbie, and he was from Wigan.

Robbie was shorter than me, and I was 5.3. He was 18 and was missing many of his teeth from poor nutrition, poverty and street brawling.

The sergeant returned and told us to stand at attention in front of our beds. The sergeant passed across the room like an ominous battle cruiser until he was in a whispered breath of me and Robbie. For a few intimating seconds, the sergeant loomed silently near and then- ordered me and Robbie to fetch coal to heat the hut, which had two stoves at each end.

On the way to the coal shed, Robbie confided, “I’ll be buggered if the RAF is going to get me killed. I’m getting out of this war in one piece.”

 “How?”

“Never fucking volunteer for anything. The best thing,” he said, “is to melt into the scenery. Don’t give the buggers a chance to remember you.”

“Mate, I don’t think we’ve been that successful if, on our first day, we’ve already been volunteered to haul coal.”

Robbie re-joined.

“Stay to the back of the room, Smith. Stay so far back that no one remembers you.”

We returned to the hut with the coal and received cheers from the other recruits. Later the sergeant returned for us, and we were marched to eat our first meal courtesy of the RAF.

The recruits, who came from better-off circumstances, complained about the quality of the food they ate.

I consumed it without complaint, as did Robbie. I would learn later, that his Great Depression was like mine, a harsh ordeal.

After eating, we were herded back to our sleeping quarters, where the sergeant hammered at us about the next day's bone-breaking itinerary.

“You love birds,” he barked, “get your shut-eye because before the sun sticks her head up and out of her arse, you'll be on the parade ground.

The sergeant doused the lights on his way out.

My first day in the RAF was over. Around me, 25 lads fell into a sleep that was punctuated with farts, snores and somnolent babble from dreams.

 Far away in Cardiff, while we slept, the air raid sirens sounded as Luftwaffe forces pounded that city. Henkel bombers attacked and gutted the university, the warehouses, and the industrial housing that hugged the port.  And in Europe, the Nazi war machine controlled the continent except for Russia and the Soviet occupation zones of Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

Thanks for reading and supporting my Substack. Your support keeps me housed and also allows me to preserve the legacy of Harry Leslie Smith. A yearly subscriptions will cover much of next month’s rent because all i need is 8 to make June’s payment. 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. But if you can’t it all good too because I appreciate we are in the same boat. Take Care, John