Your birth right is a functioning Welfare State, because it was your ancestors: blood, sweat and tears that built it.

In 1948, it was still a long road to paradise for Britain’s working class despite the foundations of the the Welfare State being laid with the creation that year of the NHS.

In Harry Leslie Smith's- Green and Pleasant Land, he reflected on what it was like to be 25, newly demobbed from the RAF, with a new wife from Germany, and the hard path he walked to find a life worth living. Here is a selection from that book where he writes about the housing crisis of that year compelled him to move with his new wife into his mouther’s house.

Tranquillity was not a frequent visitor to our home on Boothtown Road. I had been gone for seven years doing my bit in the war and afterwards as an occupational soldier in Germany. The intervening time had not mellowed my mother or the discord everyone felt under her roof.

My family's fractious relationships with each other weren't the exception but the norm for the proletariat families of Britain. But it was either sleeping in the attic with my new wife or the workhouse because, despite Attlee's Labour pledge to end the housing crisis, it was a task that would take 20 years to fulfil.

The homes on Boothtown Road crammed as many living souls as possible into the smallest space. They were animal pens for workers, not a place for contemplation or quiet reflection. Claustrophobia, and physical discomfort for those who occupied these domiciles were a deliberate element of their design.

None of them had indoor toilets because the working class were considered animals by the entitled and middle class. Like dogs, we were expected to do it outback. It amazed me when, during the war, I saw how the working class of Holland and Belgium had indoor toilets. Until then, I believed how Britain did things, and so did the world.

Before Friede and I crept upstairs to our bed in the attic, my mother handed me a lit candle which rested on a clay holder.

“It is dark as coal up in that attic,” said one of my brothers while the other warned Friede to mind the ghost. “He’s a friendly one. But a loud bugger at night, especially when he drags his chain about and moans.”

“Shut it,” I said in embarrassed irritation.

My mother wagged her finger. “Buy your own light for tomorrow night because we are not running a hotel for thee here.”

We walked up to the second-floor landing. At the back of it was a door leading to a set of narrow stairs that took us to our tight, airless bedroom.

A mattress was marooned in the middle of the loft. Near the wall, there was a table with a small mirror and wash basin.

I placed the candle on the table.

Friede wrapped her arms around herself and lamented, “It is so cold up here.”

“I am sorry,” I said, “but the damn house has only a coal fire in the front parlour. It is probably best to throw your coat on top of the blanket before you sleep.”

Friede grabbed her night clothes and said, “I will change underneath the bed covers.”

While throwing her clothes off and putting on her nightgown, Friede said, “I am glad I used the outdoor toilet before we got up here.”

I pulled my trousers off and folded them into neat creases.

I blew the candle out and jumped into the bed.

I couldn’t sleep, and my mind raced with anger, shame, and regret to have ended up living again in my mother’s home.

I stared up at the skylight and out onto the dark clouds, for a long while unable to sleep.

Outside, dogs growled, and it started to rain hard and heavy as it does in Halifax.

Friede was wrapped up in her coat like a caterpillar in its cocoon. Her head was exposed and rested uneasily on the pillow.

She was asleep, but her face looked tense and remorseful. At times, she uttered an unintelligible word in German. At other moments- her legs involuntarily shook as if- they were being bombarded with electrical currents.

Her subconscious was trapped in rough water.

I hoped her imagination would steer her towards a safe cove and shelter her against any more nightmares until daylight broke and sent her back to the waking world.

When sleep finally came for me, it took me harshly by the hand and plunged me into a trance of dreams, memories, and terrors.

I floated back to Germany, and for a second, I felt happy. But then the winds changed, and I was blown back towards my childhood. There, I was overwhelmed and crushed by helplessness and despair.

I awoke in the early morning to the sound of horse-drawn carts of the rag and bone men started to wend their way down the cobbled streets below. Below me, I heard a discordant symphony of noise from each room in our small, unhappy house. Like a ship's claxon in a foggy channel, my brothers began to fart in their bedroom while my mother in the bedroom beside theirs gave a bollocking to her long-time boyfriend Bill.

I gently slipped from the bed and quickly got dressed. I decided to go up the street to the cake shop and bring something sweet back for us.

When I got downstairs, I found my mother in the kitchen reading the Halifax Courier while slurping tea from a chipped mug. My mother looked up from her paper and reproached me sharply. “What are you doing skulking about?”

“I’m not skulking. I am just trying to be quiet because Friede had a rough night. I’ll just pop out and fetch her some cakes from the shop, up at top of the street.”

“She lives pretty high and mighty,” responded my mother. “Who gets to have a lie-in on a Thursday and served cakes? You’re not a Rothschild, you know. Harry, be sensible with that lass, or you’ll never keep her, boy. It will be thy road to ruin.”

Irritated, I said, “If I ever want directions to perdition, I’ll ask you, because you drew the map to ruination.”

My mother shrugged her shoulders and resumed sipping her tea. As the door closed behind me, my mother called out as if she were the town crier, “Don’t forget thy rent for yer mum.”

I left the house and muttered, “Stupid cow.”

Your subscriptions to Harry’s Last Stand keep the legacy of Harry Leslie Smith alive and me housed. And like for many, during this cost of living crisis, I skate on thinist of ice. 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