‘World’s oldest rebel’ dies
Harry Leslie Smith, who has died aged 95, was a World War II veteran who became a high-profile campaigner and activist for refugees; he described himself as ‘‘the world’s oldest rebel’’ and his Twitter account, @Harryslaststand, had 255,000 followers.
He visited refugee camps around the world, including the Calais ‘‘jungle’’, to ‘‘document this preventable tragedy,’’ as he put it. His other great cause was the NHS, and he first hit the headlines in 2014 when he gave a speech at the Labour Party conference on the subject, recalling the privations of his childhood, which moved some delegates to tears and ended with a standing ovation.
Harry Leslie Smith was born on February 25 1923 at Barnsley, the son of a miner who lost his job, leaving the family in dire poverty. His sister died of tuberculosis at the age of 10 because the family could not afford medical treatment, and with the Depression biting, sevenyear-old Harry was the family’s sole breadwinner, working as a barrow-boy for a Bradford beerbottler. He recalled spending several periods in workhouses.
When he was 19 he joined the RAF, and served as a wireless operator. As he recalled in a memoir, while he was part of the occupation force stationed in Hamburg after the war he met a German woman, Friede, whom he went on to marry.
In a recent speech released by the UN he spoke of how his experiences at the end of the war had shaped his world view. He remembered witnessing columns of refugees in Germany: ‘‘I can still see them. Absolutely pitiful, hungry, starving. When it was possible we would stop and give them whatever excess food supplies we had on our trucks and reassure them that now they were safe. I think for the first time I saw a gleam of hope in their faces.’’
He also observed, he said, how the Marshall Plan ‘‘saved Europe from internal collapse’’ and saw that ‘‘intelligent economic investment delivered by government agencies can turn despair into optimism’’.
On demobilisation heemigrated with Friede to Canada, living first in Toronto and then in Belleville, Ontario, where he forged a career in the oriental carpet business.
His life of activism began in retirement. 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 further 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 various newspapers, magazines and websites.
In 2013 he said he would no longer wear the Remembrance poppy, which he thought had become politicised, promoting present-day conflicts. Two years later 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, criticising the farRight ‘‘Britain First’’ movement.
In October 2017 he declared that he would spend his last years touring refugee hotspots ‘‘to find a solution to the crisis’’. It was the ‘‘last great challenge of my existence before old age consumes me.’’ He also launched a podcast in which he railed against austerity and what he saw as ‘‘the death of the welfare state at the hands of the entitled’’.
Harry Leslie Smith married Friede in 1947; she died in 1999, and he is survived by two of their sons.