Tomorrow, for most of us will look much like today, except it will be bleaker, costlier and more authoritarian.

There was once a time not so long ago when people- after enduring so much privation from the Great Depression and then experiencing up close the horrors of total war were able to look toward their future with hopefulness. It was a different epoch because politics and journalism wasn't a bought profession then. Society hadn't been co-opted by the narcissism of 24/7 consumerism. More importantly, socialism had yet to be effectively spun by the entitled class as handouts to shirkers. In those days, it was an ideology that could bloodlessly tame capitalism through fair taxation and the construction of public infrastructure to make life easier and more purposeful for citizens.

Now, the young, middle age and seniors don't have much of a future to look forward to unless they belong to that privileged minority-the top 10% of income earners. Tomorrow, for the rest of us will look much like today, except it will be bleaker, costlier and more authoritarian. 

It didn't have to be this way. But my generation- the boomers did much of the heavy lifting in fucking it up. It's Christmas time though. So instead of grinding out some depressive epistle of the rottenness of these times, I want to give you all a small token of my appreciation for you. You have stuck it out with me and read my essays, notes rants. My subscriber base has grown, and some of you even contribute with a paid subscription for my upkeep, and for that- I am grateful.  

Over the next 3 days, I will post my dad's chapter about Christmas 1945 in Hamburg because he writes about a time when the people were ready to own their future rather than surrender it to the 1%.

In December 1945, my dad, Harry Leslie Smith, was stationed in Hamburg as part of the RAF's occupation force. He arrived in Hamburg, in May of that year. It was days before Nazi Germany's formal surrender. And, because his unit had made their way through Belgium and Holland during the harsh winter of 1945, he had no love for Germans His attitude towards Germans changed soon enough when he saw how the ordinary vanquished from that war were abused. Soon after arriving, he fell in love with the woman who would become my mother.

Here is the first instalment of Harry Leslie Smith's first Christmas with her in a world recently freed from the bondage of total war.

It snowed on Christmas Eve day. It fell like icing sugar and dusted the city as if it were a stale and crumbling Christmas cake. The peddlers, black marketeers and cigarette hustlers scrambled to finish their commerce before the church bells pealed to celebrate the birth of Christ. Along the St Pauli district, steam-powered trucks delivered beer and wine to the whorehouses, which expected exceptional business from nostalgic servicemen. Across the Reeperbahn the lights burned bright, while in the refugee camps, the homeless huddled down against the cold, warming themselves with watery soup and kind words provided by visiting Lutheran priests.

The airport was somnolent; the servicemen charged with keeping it operational were as sluggish as a cat curled up on a pillow before a fire. Outside the communications tower, LACs took long cigarette breaks, draped in their greatcoats. In between puffs and guffaws, they swapped lewd jokes or tales about their sexual exploits with German women.

The air traffic control nest was unmanned for the next few days. The radio transmitters hummed emotionlessly because the ether above was empty and the clouds ripe for snow. Nothing was expected to arrive or depart until Boxing Day. On the ground, the roadways around the airport were quiet because the fleet of RAF vehicles was stabled at the motor pool for the duration of the holiday. Everywhere it was still, except on the runway where a platoon of new recruits cleared snow from the landing area.

At the telephone exchange, the switchboard was staffed by a bored skeleton crew who waited for their shift to end. The normal frenetic noise and activity from hundreds of calls being patched and dispatched through the camp to the military world in Germany and Britain was hushed as there were few people left to either place or receive a call. Some communication operators hovered around mute teletype machines, which awoke every hour and furiously printed out wind speed, temperature and ceiling levels – ‘For bloody Saint Nick,’ someone remarked.

This was a unique Christmas because, for the first time since 1938, the entire world was at peace. So anyone able took leave and abandoned our aerodrome for a ten-day furlough. For those of us who remained, a Christmas committee was formed to organise festivities. The Yule spirit around camp mirrored that of terraced-house Britain. It was constructed out of cut-price lager and crêpe paper decorations with the unspoken motto: ‘Cheap but cheerful cheer in Fuhlsbüttel.’ In the mess hall, a giant Christmas tree was erected dangerously close to a wood stove by the Xmas team. They had festooned it with glittering ornaments and placed faux presents underneath its boughs. Sleighs and Father Christmas figures cut from heavy paper were pinned to the walls as festive decorations. Mistletoe dangled from light fixtures and gave our dining hall the appearance of a holiday party at a carpet mill in Halifax.

On the morning before Christmas, I negotiated with the head cook for extra rations for Friede and her family to allow them a holiday meal. The cook was an obliging Londoner whose mastery of the culinary arts began and ended with the breakfast fry-up. Never one to say no to sweetening his own pot, the cook amicably took my bribe of tailored shirts in exchange for food. He let me fill my kit bag to bursting with tinned meat, savouries and sweets.

‘Give the Hun a bit of a treat tonight,’ he said. ‘Take the pork pie along with a bit of plum pudding.’

‘What about some cheeses?’

‘Sure, I’ve got plenty, could be a bleeding monger at the market with all the Gouda and Edam,’ the cook said. ‘No cheddar though; it’s for the toffs with shiny clogs.’

From a cheese wheel, he cut a week’s portion of Gouda and wrapped it in wax paper for me.

‘Hold on a moment,’ he said, walking to a cabinet that contained wine, spirits and beer. The cook removed some champagne and bottled ale from my parcel. He cautioned: ‘Mind you don’t get caught with this. Give my best to the missus. Pity I can’t give you a trifle, but it would spoil on the way.’ As I departed, he called out, ‘Happy Christmas. Remember, mum, ’s the word.’

‘Are we still on for next week?’ I asked.

‘If you bring shirts as soft as this one, I am always open for business to you,’ he said, stroking my bribe as if it were a dog. ‘Now, off with ya. Can’t you see I have lunch to prepare for you useless and thankless lot?’

‘Don’t burn the water and have a Happy Christmas,’ I replied and left the cookhouse.

It was late in the afternoon before I had a drink with Sid, Dave and some other mates at the canteen. We played several games of skittles where I displayed my poor gamesmanship. I lost a few shillings but redeemed myself with a good showing in darts. Through each drag on my cigarette, I nervously wondered when it was expedient to sneak out of the camp to go to Friede’s with my bag of food and Christmas gifts.

The minute hand on the wall clock slowly walked through another hour of conversation about football clubs and Christmases back in Britain: ‘They were magic.’

So everyone agreed – including me – that the holidays at home were magic, and we drank more beer to celebrate those ‘bloody magic days of youth’. , I thought Christmas was more witchcraft than magical in the ‘dirty thirties’, but I wasn’t going to spoil this celebration by denying their belief in happy childhood memories. I just wanted to depart and have a ‘bloody magic moment’ on Christmas Eve 1945. The minute hand moved reluctantly forward like a prisoner on his way to the gallows. It was time to go, and I swallowed my beer in one mouthful.

I patted Sid on the back and said, ‘Don’t wait up for me.’

‘Tara,’ he responded, with a half pint of bitter in his glass and foam racing around his lips.

‘Are you going over the top or charging through the gate tonight?’

‘Straight ahead – the bloke on duty will look the other way with a pack of Christmas fags.’

On my way to Friede’s, the streets were cold desolate and empty of pedestrians. Anyone with a place to stay was already safely tucked warmly inside. When I arrived at the steps of the apartment, it was just after eight.

PART TWO: DROPS TOMORROW.

Thank you for reading my subtack and the chapter selection above from Harry Leslie Smith’s Love Among the Ruins. Your help is needed because the cost of living crisis has become a merciless grind. During these past 24 months, I have posted 245 essays, as well as excerpts from the unpublished works of Harry Leslie Smith - along with chapter samples from my book about him. My newsletter has grown from a handful of subscribers to 1200 in that period. Around 10% of you are paid members. I appreciate all of you but ask if you can switch to a paid subscription because your help is NEEDED to keep me housed and Harry Leslie Smith's legacy relevant. But if you can't all is good too because we are sharing the same boat.  Take care, John.