Harry Leslie Smith, ‘world’s oldest rebel,’ fights for his life in an Ontario hospital.
FIERCE ADVOCATE FOR PUBLIC HEALTH CARE NOW FIGHTING HIS OWN FINAL BATTLE AT 95
Author and activist Harry Leslie Smith continued to fight for his life in a Belleville hospital on Thursday as prime ministers, politicians and ordinary people from both sides of the Atlantic offered online tributes to the Second World War veteran and social justice warrior.
The 95-year-old Smith, who calls himself “the world’s oldest rebel,” was taken to Belleville General Hospital by ambulance on Tuesday with low blood pressure and breathing difficulties.
He announced the event on Twitter, in his straightforward fashion, to 247,000 followers: “Bugger of a day, had a fall and now I am in hospital. It’s nothing just low blood pressure, but signing off for the next few hours.”
His son, John, has since commandeered his Twitter account to provide regular updates on his father’s condition, which remained guarded Thursday.
Doctors believe Smith is battling pneumonia, and possibly, sepsis, but the life-threatening conditions have not dimmed his concern for the larger world.
“With concentrated oxygen being pumped through a tube to him in the ICU, Harry asks me about the migrant caravan,” his son tweeted Thursday.
Smith’s medical crisis has spawned an international outpouring of support for the former Royal Air Force pilot, who rose to fame after his address to the 2014 Labour Party conference in which he recounted what life was like for Britain’s poor before public health care. He told the conference of the anguished cries of a dying cancer patient who could not afford morphine, and how his 10-year-old sister, Marion, suffered and died from tuberculosis in a workhouse infirmary.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was among the thousands of people who reached out to Smith on Twitter this week.
“Harry’s journey and courage have inspired so much love and kindness on this site and in the real world, too. Thank you for taking us along — we’re pulling for you,” Trudeau wrote.
He was joined by British Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn, who tweeted to Smith’s son: “Very sorry to hear this. Please pass on my best to Harry. We need him to get well soon as the National Health Service, and our movement, needs him.”
Federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh called Smith “incomparable:” “After decades fighting for universal healthcare, Harry has made a tremendous impact on Canada and the UK,” Singh tweeted. “On behalf of the NDP family, I send Harry Leslie Smith and his family our love and support.”
In the Ontario legislature Wednesday, Ottawa Centre MPP Joel Harden called Smith a legend. “One of the most eloquent champions of universal, free public health care, he has devoted himself to educating younger generations about what life was like before the creation of Britain’s National Health Service,” Harden said.
John Smith said the outpouring has brought him comfort during this week’s hospital vigil: “It’s joyous, wonderful, humbling, and it pleases me so much because this guy has been my hero for 55 years,” he said.
When he told his father about the messages of love and support, Smith said, he replied, “Tell them I love them all.”
A widower, Smith lives with his son, and they now divide their time between homes in Belleville and Yorkshire, England.
Born in February 1923, Harry Leslie Smith grew up in a hardscrabble coal town, Barnsley, in a rowhouse without electricity. He shared a bed with his older sister, Alberta.
“We slept together on a straw mattress that was host to many insects and reeked of time and other people’s piss,” he once wrote.
A pilot in the Second World War, Smith met his wife, Friede, while serving with the Allied occupation force in Hamburg. In the 1950s, they immigrated to Canada and settled in Toronto, where Smith worked as an Oriental rug buyer and salesman for Eaton’s.
Smith has written five books since turning 85.
The most recent, Harry’s Last Stand, rails against government austerity measures. He argues that the welfare state — a victory for the poor and middle class paid for by their sacrifices in two world wars — is being destroyed by unrestrained capitalism, powerful corporations and their friends in government.
In October 2017, at the age of 94, he raised more than $70,000 though a GoFundMe campaign so that he could travel to refugee camps all over the world to conduct research for a new book.
“The world must solve this crisis,” he warned, “or face the consequences of a world too unevenly divided between those with a decent life and those who live on the edges of hell.”
BUGGER OF A DAY, HAD A FALL AND NOW I AM IN HOSPITAL.