Only a few political steps separate 2024 from the fascism of 1933.

Ideologically and economically, 2024 is only a few steps away from the 1930s. Our fascism has a digital component whereas ninety years ago, theirs was strictly analogue.  

The epochs are similar in inequality, populist politics, xenophobia, fear and ignorance. I watched Trump last night do his Nuremberg on the Hudson rally and it made me think about how far America’s dollar store Hitler had come because even if he loses the election, fascism will be the dominant political force in the USA and the western world.

The epidemic of homelessness and hunger we are witnessing today in Western nations shouldn't exist. It does exist because, over the last 40 years, the entitled jerry-rigged our democracies which were forged on the battlefields of World War Two. Now they function for the prime benefit of the top 15% of income earners which is why they are the demographic in society who fights tooth and nail to preserve the status quo.

The democracy that attempted to represent all its citizens died bit by bit as the Welfare State that was built by the veterans of World War Two was monetised and sold off to corporations owned by the entitled. Next Week, America decides its fate but no matter the winner the cards are stacked against the ordinary citizen in the USA and abroad.

Democracy won't survive neoliberalism, and should we continue on this path- most of us will envy the dead.

Below is another chapter from The Green and Pleasant Land, the book my father and I were working on at the time of his death. The edits on it are almost complete. It’s a wonderful book and deserves to be preserved like they other 5 books from Harry’s Last Stand. But I need your help to do that. Subscriptions or tips go a long way in keeping me housed and not on the streets at the age of 61.

Chapter Eight:

Mum was in her eighth month of pregnancy during the dog days of August in 1930.

She was short-tempered with Dad because instead of finding fault with capitalism for causing the Great Depression, he was made to blame for our personal destruction. Mum was in a constant rage that was never quenched no matter how many times she exploded with invective against my dad for the injustice of our poverty.

Hungry, angry and pregnant mum was a beast best avoided. So, I did not complain when I was packed off to spend the remainder of the summer in Barnsley with my grandparents. Alberta was not sent with me because- being ten- she was considered old enough to work as a part-time laundress. It provided my family the extra pennies it needed to afford bread for our nightly tea.

In a few months, and to my great despair, I was also destined to be pressed into child labour to prevent my family from becoming utterly destitute.

Mum walked with me to the station, where a bus to Barnsley awaited. I carried a sack packed with a change of clothes.

"Uncle Harold will meet you where the bus drops you off and walk you to Grandma Dean’s house.”

My uncle Harold, as promised, was there waiting for me when my bus reached Hoyland Common, near where my grandparents lived.

Harold was thirty years old, thin as a rail and, sarcastic and imbued with a nervous energy that radiated off him as if it was static electricity.

He spoke to me as he did to adults in short, brutally sarcastic sentences. Harold was married to Ida, whom he adored because she softened the harsh edges of his personality. He, Ida and my uncle Ted lived with my grandparents.

Harold did not hide from me his detestation of my mother.

At each street corner, Harold called Mum a “whore, bitch” or something else equally offensive.

My grandparents lived on Beaumont Street in a two-bedroom tenement house. It had a ginnel leading onto a back plot where a privy and small vegetable garden was located.

When I arrived, my 73-year-old Granddad, Walter Dean was fast asleep on a chair in the parlour.

Before retirement, he was first a soldier for Queen Victoria and then a miner in the pits around Barnsley, where he set the fuses to explode apart the coal face.

When he served in the army, Granddad never saw battle, but you would have never known that from how he talked about life in the Artillery.

He served in India in the 1890s. He was an oppressed working-class soldier who oppressed others in Britain's pursuit of Imperial and economic domination- across the world.

Grandad spent ten years in India and departed the military, with no trade to enhance his earning potential on civvy street to make life easier for himself, his wife and seven children.

He didn't think much of me because I didn't care much for the medals he earned by taking the Queen's shilling when he showed them to me one night before bedtime.

Like Harold, my Granddad didn't like my mother much either.

From a child’s perspective, he resembled a gruff walrus who laboured to stand. He believed in monarchy, empire and the class system, which he proudly guarded from its bottom rung.

My grandmother, Mary Ellen, also held strong opinions on my mother, which were generally negative.

She always wore petticoats and a heavy wool dress that swept the floor around her as she walked.

She never raised her hand or voice in my direction, nor did she hug me. My grandmother was aloof, set in her ways, but that didn't bother me.

At tea time, my grandmother insisted grace was said before we ate and those were the last words spoken until our meal was finished. The lack of conversation didn't bother me. I reasoned it was better than being asked unpleasant questions about my parents or about my mother's pregnancy. My uncle Ted I found the most interesting to talk to.

During one of my first conversations with Ted, he told me about the hand-painted wooden caravan he obtained by winning a card game.

"When I am done my time down in the pits. I will buy a horse and travel across Yorkshire in my caravan and live like a vagabond. I never want to see a day of darkness again after I leave these mines for good. Ted made good on that when he retired from the mines in the 1950s, he took to the open roads in summer and autumn with his horse-drawn caravan to attend Test matches around Yorkshire.

During his annual two-week holiday, Ted tended the vegetable patch behind my grandparents' house that supplemented their meals in summer with fresh produce. I'd find him there in the mornings, carefully and solicitously weeding the small garden.

He let me eat ripened fruit from the small plot, which I savoured, remembering how in June, I stole apples from fruit mongers.

Ted did not speak much, and when he did, everything was in short syllables,

“mind this” or “yer alright there.”

But it was spoken from a calm river inside him, which relaxed me.

Ted could not abide my mother. "We are chalk and cheese." Ted also didn't get along with Harold. But outside of his wife Ida, Harold didn't get along with anyone. Harold's relationship with my grandmother was tense because he liked to gamble. On some days the two of them went at each other like two wasps trapped in an empty jam jar.

 When either my uncle or grandma begged my granddad to intercede in their squabbling. He laughed at them and responded. "Time down in the mines made me wise. You won't find me daft enough to get between two swinging picks.

Wisely, I followed my grandfather's dictum and avoided them when they fought. However, one day, their argument was over me. Harold sensed I was bored and wanted to take me with him on a trip to Sheffield. "It's bad enough that young Harry picked up Bradford's vices and now you want him to learn about Sheffield's."

My uncle said the trip was for legitimate purposes and that I deserved a chance to have a holiday away from her.

With my grandmother's mixed blessings, I travelled by bus to Sheffield with Harold. The bus made numerous stops including the village where my dad's family still lived. "Your dad's kin live here. Not that I give a toss for them."

I looked out the window and asked. "Why not?"

Harold grunted and said. "Their blood runs with ice, except for your dad. He's an alright bloke."

At Sheffield, Harold told me not to be a nuisance or to ask him questions when he went about his errands. A few hours later we were in a pub where we stood by the bar. Harold ordered himself a whisky and asked the innkeeper about a drink for myself. After deliberation, they settle on an orange squash and gin for me.

The afternoon passed with my uncle sipping whisky and me orange squash laced with gin whilst I listened to Harold talk about the thrill of horse racing. On the bus ride home, Harold and I snoozed in a drunken stooper.

Harold's wife Ida worked as a bookkeeper on a large industrial farm and lodged there on weekdays. She was revered in the family because she had a trade that used its brain rather than brawn. Tragically, she died young and left Harold a widower for 50 years before he died in 2004. For five decades following her death he was hateful of everyone in the world for scoffing love from underneath him.

Ida gave me the means to learn one of the most valuable skills a poor lad in the 1930s could acquire; the knowledge of how to ride a bike.

Ida lent me her bike and, with it, gave me the freedom to roam far from the troubles of adults around me.

The only instructions from Ida were to get on the bike and pedal as fast as my legs would allow me. The first day on it I suffered, scrapes, bangs and bitter disappointment that riding a bike was harder than it looked.

By the second day, I was able to keep on the bike and keep it steady for longer periods.

Many attempts and many aborted take-offs would ensue. But gradually, I developed my wings. I was able to pedal and remained balanced and aloft for longer periods.

I was ready to discover the hills and dales surrounding my grandparent’s house. I’d spend my mornings and afternoons riding this bike. I was free of the burdens of hunger. I was away from my parents' despair and disintegrating marriage.

I was free of my own sense of shame because of our poverty. On this bike, I could pedal faster than the storm clouds of the Great Depression all around me.

As with all things in my early life, these sheltered moments of calm were brief. The summer winded its way through my grandparent’s house on Beaumont Street until one morning, it all ended with a "Time to go, lad," from Uncle Harold.

I returned to Bradford, where my sister patiently waited for me at the bus station. Silently, we walked home because I was afraid to ask if things were worse with my mother and father.

As we made our way home, the city looked tubercular and the inhabitants broken from their long bout of unemployment. The closer we got to our neighbourhood, the more desperate and forsaken people appeared. There was even some children, whose families were so destitute that they begged on the street. Alberta grabbed me by the arm. "Hurry up and don't stare at the poor sods or else they are going to steal what little luck we still own."

Thanks for all your continuing support. You have been great, and I am so pleased my Substack has nearly 2450 subscribers- 217 which are paid. I am building a community here, but it is slow and arduous work.

This month I have published over 27k words here, which is a lot of words. To be honest too many words. If I wasn't so short of cash the post would be fewer but more polished. But that isn't happening anytime soon if ever. I am in a bind right now, I have 4 days left before my rent is due and I am short a few hundred Canadian. It is never much but it is enough to begin my spiral into homelessness. So, if you can and only if you can please subscribe to my Substack or use the Tip Jar. I am reducing a yearly subscription by 20% because it is a fire sale, of sorts. Take care because I know many of you are sharing the same boat with me.