[Potemkin]

Inspirational!

I have lived a very long time. Tomorrow, it will be exactly 94 years ago that a midwife with a love of harsh gin and rolled cigarettes delivered me into my mother’s tired, working-class arms. Neither the midwife nor my mother would have expected me to live to almost 100 because my ancestors had lived in poverty for as long as there was recorded history in Yorkshire.

Nowadays, when wealth is considered wisdom, too often old age is derided, disrespected or feared, perhaps because it is the last stage in our human journey before death. But in this era of Trump and Brexit, ignoring the assets of knowledge that are acquired over a long life could be as lethal as disregarding a dead canary in a coal mine.

I have been living on borrowed time since my birth in Barnsley all those years ago: I survived both the depression and the second world war. Even in advanced old age, because I walked free of those two events, I feel like a man who beat all the odds in a high-stakes casino. It’s why I’ve embraced each season of my life with both joy and wonderment because I know our time on Earth is a brief interlude between nonexistence.

Grauniad link

[SolarCross]

Never let it be said that Guardian journalists are just failed wannabe novelists. Their fiction is just as elegantly phrased as anything that Radio 4 presenters would gush over in Book of the Week.

All of you, when young, will make your own history: you will struggle, you will betray some and others will betray you. You will love and lose love. You will feel profound joy and deep sorrow and during all of this you will grow as an individual. That’s why it is your duty when you get old to tell the young about your odyssey across the vast ocean of your life. It is why when death does come for me – even if it mauls me with decrepitude before it takes me – I will not lament either my old age or my faded youth. They were just different times of the day when I stood in the sun and felt the warmth of life.

Purple prose? I think not!

[MistyTiger]

It really reads like a memoir. Wow, very eloquent!

I do not know if I want to live that long. If I do, I want to age gracefully and feel that kind of contentment as this 94 year old.

[anarchist23]

Have read the autobiography of Harry Leslie Smith who wrote this piece. The book is called "Harry's Last Stand."
He is an old guru of the left, very perceptive. He was raised in the great depression and fears that we could have another, fought in WWII, was in the occupying force of burnt out/bombed Hamburg and whilst there he married a German girl.

[Frollein]

fought in WWII, was in the occupying force of burnt out/bombed Hamburg and whilst there he married a German girl.

And was it twue vuve to marry one of the bastards that torched your city, or was she just a pragmatic slut?

[anarchist23]

And was it twue vuve to marry one of the bastards that torched your city, or was she just a pragmatic slut?

They were in love, love is blind. They moved to Yorkshire, then to Canada and were together till she died in I999.

[Potemkin]

And was it twue vuve to marry one of the bastards that torched your city, or was she just a pragmatic slut?

Why not both, Frollein? After all, twue wuv is the survival instinct itself, the species-urge to reproduce. If it also helped her personal survival in the post-apocalyptic wasteland of Germany, then all the better.

Seriously though, Frollein, demanding 'patriotism' from the traumatised survivors of post-War Germany is absurd. The German nation no longer existed in 1945. To what were they supposed to be patriotic? The defunct, genocidal Nazi regime? The Soviet Army which had 'liberated' them from Nazi rule? The Allied occupiers?

[anarchist23]

Harry Leslie Smith writes regularly for The Guardian commenting on politics and 20th-century history. He attracted attention in November 2013, writing that he would not wear the Remembrance poppy in future years because he felt the symbol was being used to promote support for present-day conflicts. He addressed the September 2014 Labour Party conference, speaking in support of the National Health Service, and has spoken on BBC Radio and at the Bristol Politics Festival.

Smith runs a Twitter feed with over 88,000 followers , commenting on a wide range of current affairs.He has said that it was the global financial crisis of 2008 that inspired him to take his "last stand", writing and campaigning on income inequality, public services and what he sees as the diminishing prospects for young people. "I want to use my time and whatever influence I have from the book to get the young in Britain to vote the only way we can: to save our social democratic institutions. I want us to make our last stand at the ballot box."

In October 2015, Smith appeared on the BBC Three documentary We Want Our Country Back, where he sharply criticised the far-right anti-immigration political movement "Britain First".

wiki

[Frollein]

Seriously though, Frollein, demanding 'patriotism' from the traumatised survivors of post-War Germany is absurd. The German nation no longer existed in 1945. To what were they supposed to be patriotic? The defunct, genocidal Nazi regime? The Soviet Army which had 'liberated' them from Nazi rule? The Allied occupiers?

Refusing to sell yourself to the occupying force has nothing to do with patriotism. Why should she stop hating them just because they were now sauntering through the ruins of her city after bombing it to rubble? What has the legal existence or non-existence of the nation to do with that? Just because your enemy has won, doesn't mean he's suddenly your friend.

[Potemkin]

Refusing to sell yourself to the occupying force has nothing to do with patriotism. Why should she stop hating them just because they were now sauntering through the ruins of her city after bombing it to rubble? What has the legal existence or non-existence of the nation to do with that? Just because your enemy has won, doesn't mean he's suddenly your friend.

So what are you suggesting, Frollein? That she should have picked up a rifle and gone into the hills to wage a guerrilla campaign to liberate Germany from the Allied armies? In the name of what? What could this have possibly achieved (besides her own death)? Let's be realistic here, Frollein.

I think the basic problem you seem to have is that you cannot accept that the old Germany - the Germany founded by Bismarck, the Germany which had won the Franco-Prussian War, the Germany which had gone head-to-head with the British Empire and almost won - that old Germany was dead by 1945. It was represented by the Prussian generals, guys like von Stauffenberg and so on. They could see what Hitler was, and they could see what he was doing to their Germany, which is why they kept trying to kill the fucker. In retrospect, these were the final death throes of the old Germany. Hitler purged the Junkers, the Soviet and Allied Armies marched into the heart of Berlin and purged the Nazis, and that was that. Finis Germania. What other options did people have, but to accept their occupiers as their friends, and even their lovers and husbands? After all, who else was she going to marry? All the eligible German men were either lying dead on some battlefield in Russia, or were rotting in a Soviet gulag in the Arctic Circle. She had no choices left, and she had no country left. Time to survive. Time to move on....

[Frollein]

So what are you suggesting, Frollein? That she should have picked up a rifle and gone into the hills to wage a guerrilla campaign to liberate Germany from the Allied armies? In the name of what? What could this have possibly achieved (besides her own death)? Let's be realistic here, Frollein.

You seem to suggest that those were the only two options she had. If that was true, we'd all be half-Brits, half-Americans, half-French (well, we do have the Saarland, so scratch that) and half-Russians today. Obviously, not all German men were gone, so she didn't have to "fall in love" with the arsonist. But oh well...

I think the basic problem you seem to have is that you cannot accept that the old Germany - the Germany founded by Bismarck, the Germany which had won the Franco-Prussian War, the Germany which had gone head-to-head with the British Empire and almost won - that old Germany was dead by 1945. It was represented by the Prussian generals, guys like von Stauffenberg and so on. They could see what Hitler was, and they could see what he was doing to their Germany, which is why they kept trying to kill the fucker. In retrospect, these were the final death throes of the old Germany. Hitler purged the Junkers, the Soviet and Allied Armies marched into the heart of Berlin and purged the Nazis, and that was that. Finis Germania. What other options did people have, but to accept their occupiers as their friends, and even their lovers and husbands? After all, who else was she going to marry? All the eligible German men were either lying dead on some battlefield in Russia, or were rotting in a Soviet gulag in the Arctic Circle. She had no choices left, and she had no country left. Time to survive. Time to move on....

At least in East Germany, people never accepted the Soviets as "friends" (except the "elite," of course) and they seem to have their heads screwed on right to this day, so perhaps all is not lost. And even in the West, the "elite" never ceased to bemoan the oh-so rampant "anti-Americanism," so people here weren't so keen on that friendship, either. I know that my family was less than pleased with their presence, and I bet they weren't the only ones.

As for that loverbird, I wonder how often she had to ignore the Sieg Heil in Yorkshire since we all know how the Brits love to mention the war.

[Potemkin]

You seem to suggest that those were the only two options she had. If that was true, we'd all be half-Brits, half-Americans, half-French (well, we do have the Saarland, so scratch that) and half-Russians today. Obviously, not all German men were gone, so she didn't have to "fall in love" with the arsonist. But oh well...

Neither of us knows the details of her personal circumstances in 1945, Frollein. But suffice it to say that, for various reasons, there was a severe shortage of eligible German males in 1945.

At least in East Germany, people never accepted the Soviets as "friends" (except the "elite," of course) and they seem to have their heads screwed on right to this day, so perhaps all is not lost. And even in the West, the "elite" never ceased to bemoan the oh-so rampant "anti-Americanism," so people here weren't so keen on that friendship, either. I know that my family was less than pleased with their presence, and I bet they weren't the only ones.

I'm sure they weren't. But again, what were the options? Were they going to pick up a rifle and take to the hills as guerrillas in order to 'liberate' Germany? The only people who tried that were the Rote Armee Fraktion, but I doubt you would have fully endorsed their political programme... Most people were wise enough just to keep their heads down, their mouths shut, and their hands working.

As for that loverbird, I wonder how often she had to ignore the Sieg Heil in Yorkshire since we all know how the Brits love to mention the war.

Putting up with the British "sense of humour" was still probably far preferable to the other alternatives which awaited her in 1945, Frollein.

[Frollein]

You seem to be awfully taken with the idea of grabbing a rifle and taking to the hills today, Pote...

The RAF wasn't trying to "liberate" Germany. They were trying to turn it into a second GDR. Today, Merkel managed to do that without a single shot being fired.

[Rancid]

I plan to live to about 150 years old.

[Potemkin]

You seem to be awfully taken with the idea of grabbing a rifle and taking to the hills today, Pote...

Hey, I can dream can't I...?

The RAF wasn't trying to "liberate" Germany. They were trying to turn it into a second GDR.

Same thing, Frollein.

Today, Merkel managed to do that without a single shot being fired.

Comrade Merkel is our most successful 'left-behind' agent of all time....

[Decky]

Frollein sounds like the IRA when they were trying to justify blowing up all those northern irish women in night clubs who danced with British soldiers in the evenings.

[Frollein]

Hey, I can dream can't I...?

Of course...

Comrade Merkel is our most successful 'left-behind' agent of all time....

Indeed. We all know how it ended for Ceaucescu...

Frollein sounds like the IRA when they were trying to justify blowing up all those northern irish women in night clubs who danced with British soldiers in the evenings.

I thought you are Catholic, Decky - don't you approve of the IRA?

[Decky]

Read my post again Frollein. Did I ever say it was a bad thing?

[Frollein]

No. No you didn't.

[MistyTiger]

They were in love, love is blind. They moved to Yorkshire, then to Canada and were together till she died in I999.

*swoons*

That is sooo romantic!