The Empress of Australia by Harry Leslie Smith

Smith wrote regularly for The Guardian, commenting on politics and twentieth-century history. After his retirement he was a writer of memoirs and social history, dividing his time between Ontario and Yorkshire. After their deaths, Smith consoled himself by turning to writing. His wife Friede died in 1999, and his middle son Peter died in 2009. Smith made a career in the Oriental rug trade, as a buyer and salesman for Eaton's, specialising and importing new designs from the Middle East, the former Soviet bloc, and Afghanistan. He and Friede emigrated to Canada in November 1953, living in Scarborough (now part of Toronto) and later in Belleville, Ontario, and had three sons: Michael (born 1953), Peter (1959–2009), and John (born 1963). The couple returned to the UK after he was demobilised, and he worked at various jobs around the Yorkshire area. Whilst serving there, he met his future wife, Friede. Smith joined the RAF in 1941 and spent several years in Hamburg, Germany, as part of the Allied occupation force. After his father became unemployed, the family moved to Bradford, Yorkshire, then to Halifax, West Yorkshire. His eldest sister Marion died of tuberculosis in 1926, aged ten years as there was no cure for the disease at the time, nor did the family have enough money to see a doctor. Smith was born on 25 February 1923, in Barnsley, Yorkshire, the son of Albert Smith (1867–1943), an unemployed coal miner, and Lillian Dean (1894–1978). In Canada he made a 2015 'Stand Up for Progress' national tour. He appeared in public at the 2014 Labour Party conference in Manchester, and during the 2015 general election and the 2016 EU membership referendum. Smith wrote five books, about life in the Great Depression, the Second World War, and post-war austerity, and columns for The Guardian, New Statesman, The Daily Mirror, International Business Times, and the Morning Star.

After retiring, Smith wrote his memoirs and about the social history of 20th-century Britain. He grew up in poverty in Yorkshire, served in the Royal Air Force in the Second World War, and emigrated to Canada in 1953. Harry Leslie Smith (25 February 1923 – 28 November 2018) was an English writer and political commentator.

The Empress of Australia by Harry Leslie Smith