Regina Leader-Post

HARRY ‘LEFT HIS MARK’ ON US.

- Steven serviss Postmedia News, with files from The Daily Telegraph

Humanitari­an and author Harry Leslie Smith, a Second World War veteran who dedicated the last years of his life to defending the marginaliz­ed and the poor while warning against the threat of nationalis­m, has died.

Smith’s son, who had been issuing regular medical updates to his father’s 250,000 Twitter followers, said the 95-year-old Briton died early Wednesday morning.

“I have spent the last 8 years with Harry on his beautiful odyssey to not make his past our future,” his son John wrote on Twitter. “It was (an) honour to be his son and comrade.”

Smith was hospitaliz­ed in Belleville, Ont., after suffering a fall and contractin­g an infection, the younger Smith said by phone Wednesday.

On Twitter, British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn called Smith “one of the giants whose shoulders we stand on.” Corbyn led a tribute in the British Parliament to Smith, who described himself as “the world’s oldest rebel.”

Last week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was among the chorus of supporters extolling Smith’s dedication to championin­g the poor and persecuted in his final days.

Smith’s mission was born of his own suffering during the Great Depression and the Second World War.

In his writing in several publicatio­ns and books, Smith recounted growing up in squalor in Yorkshire, England, and hearing the sound of his father’s boots among the coal miners who made their daily pilgrimage beneath the surface of the earth.

In 1926, he lost his sister to tuberculos­is, a disease he attributed to the lack of sanitation in the slum in which his family lived, too poor to afford proper medical care.

His youth was punctuated by hunger and homelessne­ss as the Great Depression took hold. He witnessed the rise of fascism during the Second World War as a member of the British air force, and was deeply affected by watching a stream of desperate refugees flee Germany.

Amid the destructio­n and bloodshed, however, Smith found the great love of his life — a young German woman named Friede Edelmann, his wife of more than five decades before her death in 1999.

As the couple raised three children, Smith, who split his time between England and Canada, came to see his hardscrabb­le youth as symptomati­c of the geopolitic­al tides shaping societies for good and for ill.

His life of activism began in retirement from his oriental carpet business in Belleville. He began writing in 2009, for two reasons, he said: the global financial crisis, and the death of his middle son at the age of 50. That year he published Love Among the Ruins: A memoir of life and love in Hamburg, going on to produce several books of autobiogra­phy. Then in 2014 came Harry’s Last Stand, in which he wrote: “I want to tell you what the world looks like through my eyes, so that you can help change it.” He also contribute­d to newspapers, magazines and websites.

Smith cautioned against what he saw as a resurgence of the same destructiv­e forces that wrought havoc in the early 20th century — the dismantlin­g of social-welfare systems, the inequities of unchecked capitalism and the rising threat of nationalis­m.

In 2015 he launched his Stand Up For Progress tour, and in October that year he appeared on the BBC Three documentar­y We Want Our Country Back, criticizin­g the far-right “Britain First” movement.

The nonagenari­an embraced social media and podcasting to spread his warnings across the globe, and his progressiv­e polemics gained particular resonance among many millennial­s.

“I am the world’s oldest rebel,” Smith told UNHCR Magazine in October. “I think there are many things we can do if we put our minds to it, and we shouldn’t be leaving anyone out.”

Having published five books and spoken to audiences across the United Kingdom and Canada, Smith launched a crowdfundi­ng campaign last year to finance his travels to refugee hot spots, raising more than $70,000.

“Over my close to one hundred years of life, I have witnessed or participat­ed in the great and terrible events that shaped the 20th century,” Smith wrote on the Gofundme page.

“Those impression­s will not die with me because I have delivered my memories of those turning points in our collective history.

“I will make sure that this last great task of my life will be a fitting testament to my generation’s commitment to leaving the world a better place.”

Former Labour Party leader Ed Miliband tweeted that Smith was “one-of-a-kind who never wavered in his fight for equality and justice. We should all carry his passion, optimism and spirit forward.”

Canadian Veteran Affairs Minister Seamus O’regan also paid his respects in a tweet Wednesday, calling Smith an “extraordin­ary public leader.”

“The mark Harry left on the world — on so many of us — is indelible,” O’regan wrote. “He was an extraordin­ary man.”

Smith’s son, John, tweeted that he hoped there would be public memorials for his father in Canada and the U.K., and he vowed to take on the mantle of his father’s fight for justice.

 ?? PETER J. THOMPSON / NATIONAL POST FILES ?? British-born author and activist Harry Leslie Smith, who famously described himself as “the world’s oldest rebel,” died Wednesday morning in Belleville, Ont., at age 95.
PETER J. THOMPSON / NATIONAL POST FILES British-born author and activist Harry Leslie Smith, who famously described himself as “the world’s oldest rebel,” died Wednesday morning in Belleville, Ont., at age 95.

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