1923: A Memoir: "Lies and Testaments"

A humble story from a man with a beautiful soul. He traversed a wide terrain to take him to his resting place. Every school child should reads Harry’s story.. It’s humbling and raw.

1923: A Memoir is written by 88 year-old Harry Leslie Smith and is the first volume of an autobiographical account, from around the time he was born in 1923 until his youth at the end of the second world war.It is a beautifully written and moving story of a child growing up during a time of post war poverty and depression in northern England. Harry's memories are extremely vivid and provide an emotive view of how his family fell apart through circumstances, lies and deceit.Written in the style of a novel, it's easy to forget that this is true life, as the words and memories flow in detail along the pages. It's interesting and at times sad to read how hard life was for poor Harry to begin with, and how it impacted the poignant relationship with his father. There's no sympathy for his mother, Lilian, until you understand the problems she herself deals with, and then you realise there are two sides to every story.But this is Harry's story and not only does he provide a graphical account of living in times of desperation and dire poverty, he also describes what it's like maturing into a young man and the impact on normal life of political events happening across the globe - as England enters world war two.Harry's way with words is splendid:Of his parents brief marriage ceremony, Harry says: "It lasted only slightly longer than the sex that had led them to the marriage altar."Describing a trip to the store to purchase pullet eggs, the cheapest eggs available because they were small and transported from Poland packed in crates, Harry says: "The shattered and smashed eggs congealed in the straw. They emitted a foul damp smell like farts trapped in a sofa."As a young man, trying to improve himself and his chances in life by joining a finishing school, Harry says: "The other students viewed me as someone who had mistakenly entered the room and forgotten to bring the tea trolley and biscuits."And there are gems like those all over the book, which are a delight to come across.1923: A Memoir is a true story well worth telling and a true story well worth reading - not only because at the very least it will make you appreciate how good we have things today, but also because it is very well written and flows from page to page. I'm looking forward to the second volume to find out what happened to Harry after he met the love of his life. This is due out in October 2011 titled: A Place For The Heart To Kip.

I love this book. The author is 90 + years old and it is worth reading his testament - there is virtually nobody else left him, with such good recall and such a story to tell. It is readable too and makes me realise that history is repeating itself. If you are a Toty and think that austere is working for us all, you won't like this book at all though!

The author captures the despair and frustration of poverty in an extremely moving way. I found the first chapter a little heavy going, but thank goodness I persevered as from then on I was captivated by the honesty of how the author saw his desperate little life. The descriptive language was a joy and so many times summed up the situation perfectly and helped me feel what Harry must have felt, one of my favourite lines being when a very young Harry and his sister found their drunken mother lying on the doorstep and dragged her indoors, "We were like fishermen on a trawler pulling in an enormous haul of near-dead fish.".The chapters covering Harry's life in the RAF were spot-on too. Most men did not want to die for their country or for any other reason and the futility of the war with its mindless murder and destruction is very apparent.I'm sure my review could never do this book justice, it was a fine read and I would certainly want to read the next volume of this biography (if there is one) or indeed any other work from this writer. Highly recommended.

First-hand social history from a great socialist, who lived amid the poverty and unemployment of Britains interwar years. Where to fall sick meant the workhouse.Thank you Mr Smith for leaving us this memoir of what happens under capitalism.

Clarifies the predatory nature of the British class system. More surprising is the fact that the British themselves, up to the more "intelligent" levels, fail to see how pernicious it all is to this day. Smithy nails the central issue.

This makes uncomfortable but compelling reading. The author grew up in grinding poverty and appalling conditions but with a determination to better himself. I actually found this an inspiring read in the end. Although I was shocked and horrified to read what this young boy and his siblings had to put up with, I admired his determination to better himself by finding escape in reading. His childhood was dreadful and his youth in the RAF tedious. Although bitterness shows through in his writing at times; it is perfectly natural given the circumstances but this is not a wallow in self pity. I found the ending very optimistic and hope to read the next installment of his memoirs soon!

Amazing book - especially as it is a true story. looking forward to reading some more of Harry Leslie Smith's books.

A very moving and well written book - shows how poor people are abused.

With so much suffering all over the world we Westerners sometimes forget the suffering and starvation that occurred in our backyards among poor white people during the Depression and the World Wars. Harry Leslie Smith presents a completely pitiless memoir of his childhood living hand-to-mouth with an alcoholic mother and a disenfranchised, depressed father.The struggles of Smith to make sense of, and come to terms with, his ambivalent feelings about his mother and father should be read by anybody who has survived childhood abuse and neglect. He is able to vividly evoke the confused, angry feelings of a child as he experiences the pain his parents inflict on him but also maturely reflect on the pressures under which his parents were trying to survive, both economically and psychologically.The greatest strength of this book is the complex understanding which Smith brings to bear in recounting how his family's (mis)fortunes fit within the smaller picture of Northern English village life and the larger picture of Britain's political landscape. It is an extraordinary accomplishment - an English version of The Grapes of Wrath. I am unsurprised that it has taken Smith a lifetime to finally construct his memoir. In common with many survivors, however, it is evident that Smith, from a little tacker, had a thirst for knowledge and beauty and an awareness of a possible life other than the hard-scrabble existence that himself and his beloved sister endured.The memoir ends with Smith recounting his experiences as a signaller in WWII. Compared to many he had "a good war" and he is very aware of that. Smith recounts WWII experiences that are rarely documented - those who stood and waited and ended up going in to do the mopping up.The memoir ends with Smith meeting the woman who would become his wife. It was disappointing to come to the end of this memoir and I look forward to future memoirs but it was appropriate that Smith devoted a book to fully exploring his childhood experience. Smith teaches us a great deal about survival, self-awareness and compassion and his memoir is an amazing gift to social historians. It is clear that Smith has neither forgiven nor forgotten.It's unimaginable to me that someone could read this book without being profoundly moved by it. The author also has a blog [...] which I have started to follow.

Having never read a memoir, I wasn't sure what to expect. But from the moment I got involved with loveahappyending.com and selected my authors, I knew I would be a fan of the genre - at least this particular author's account of his early years.Just from the brief blurbs on the loveahappyending.com/harry-leslie-smith/ author page, there was a parallel resonance between Harry's life and my father's, although comparing the two, my father's life wasn't nearly so tragic and poverty-stricken. In their later years, they both fought in Europe during WWII.It must have been extremely painful for Harry to be able to put his childhood on paper for all to see yet cathartic at the same time.It's hard to imagine the type of childhood Harry experienced in 1920s and 1930s England. In that period, people did what that had to in order to survive, including digging through trash and stealing from others to obtain something to eat. His account of his father's years of working in the mines until he could no longer work below ground to being pensioned off and shamed out of the family home because of the actions of his mother, who only did what she had to in order to ensure their survival (such as it was).Even Harry's mates and later his RAF comrades had no idea what he had been through as a child, ***spoiler here*** although I suspected it would tumble out when he pulled his rifle on a fellow serviceman. ***end spoiler***. Harry had invented a happy reasonaby normal family life for himself.Harry is quick to credit his older sister, Mary, for his survival. When she finally leaves home, he's devastated. They remain close but it's not the same. When he talks about corresponding with Mary after he's enlisted with the RAF, you can feel the hurt in his words as he knows they've drifted apart.Harry's keen wit and way with words make for an spell-binding rollercoaster ride of emotions from the lowest of low to the highest of high. He doesn't pull any punches and is brutally honest when reliving his experiences.There are two more chapters forthcoming in this series. 1947: A Place For The Heart To Kip and the final book, tentatively entitled 1953: Empress of Australia.After reading his first, I'll definitely be purchasing the next two.

Smith's coming of age memoir takes readers on a journey of poverty and heartbreak that is the author's childhood and young adulthood growing up between the first and second world wars. Smith stays true to himself and his inner voice as he recounts the events of his early life. The narrative flow develops and ages, if you will, as he does throughout the book. It's incredibly powerful to see a precocious child harden under his circumstances and age into an adult set on escaping the ever looming workhouse and empty stomach that seemed to define his childhood.This is one of those memoirs that will stay with you long after you finish reading it because of the author's ability to put his life onto the page without holding back or sugarcoating the details. He digs deep into the infidelity of his mother, the shunning of his father, and the relationship he has with his sister that falls apart once they survived childhood and struck out on their own. I heard the sounds of dishes shattering on the kitchen floor and felt the weight of Smith's mother as he and his sister dragged her drunken and limp body from the curb into the house after a night spent at the bar.While reading, I did notice a few typographical and grammatical errors; however, Smith's life story was so powerful that I registered the errors and kept right on reading. Typically, typos, misspellings, and other grammatical mistakes jar me from the narrative and make me lose credibility in the author, but not in this case. I kept on reading, immersed in Smith's poignant and heartbreaking life to see if and how he would overcome every obstacle imaginable for a child.1923: A Memoir is a compelling read that I would recommend to memoir and history lovers alike.This review originally appeared on Feeding My Book Addiction: [...]

When I ordered this book, I was expecting an interesting read, but I wasn't expecting to be totally enthralled with an autobiography covering only the period from birth to the end of WWII of that life - which is happily still going on. You know the saying, "You had me at hello?" Well, Harry had me with the Author's Introduction. Just that Introduction was worth the cost of the book! But, as I read his words that covered his childhood during the Great Depression in England, I could see, hear, and smell a time and place that I had never known. I could feel the pain and strength in a young boy that I had never known. But, I cared for him; I would have cried for him, but I had read the Introduction and saw the strength and amazing grasp on life that young boy grew up to have.I've also read many books about WWII, but never one that took me realistically into the mind and body of a young soldier who thought and acted exactly the way young men do regardless of wars or poverty or other horrors. The book, though an autobiography, reads like a novel, depicts reality with the realism that only novelist generally capture, and captures the reader's heart with the point-of-view of the protagonist, a very real young boy and man.I've never met Harry Leslie Smith; we are continents apart. But, I feel like I know him, that in someway I've shared his experiences, and that he's taken me on a journey through a great depression in England and a war in Europe. I would recommend this book to anyone!