The Empress of Australia by Harry Leslie Smith

The Empress of Australia by Harry Leslie Smith

In the winter of 1948, a post-war darkness felled Britain and happiness, like sweets, was tightly rationed. So begins Harry Leslie Smith's bitter-sweet memoir: The Empress of Australia which depicts life in post-war Yorkshire. Recently demobbed from the RAF, Smith and his German war bride must try to adjust to a civilian society that is scarred from not only the war but the harsh reality of living in peacetime Britain. At first, Harry Leslie Smith finds himself ill equipped for this brave new world where Britain has lost its empire and is bankrupt. Yet, like so many other returning veterans from the Second World War, Smith stumbled onwards through the era known as the Age of Austerity to confront the horrors of his childhood and the innate injustice of a society divided by class. Harry Leslie Smith sketches a real, sometimes amusing and sometimes melancholic portrait of Britain in the late 1940s. In his book, Smith speaks for all generations who have faced untold hardships in their quest for dignity and purpose during times of financial, political and familial upheaval. The Empress of Australia is a personal history of one man's journey towards self discovery and freedom from row house Britain. Sometimes, after the war, peace is the hardest battle to survive.

Harry Leslie Smith was born into abject poverty in Barnsley in the north of England in 1923. During the second world war he served with the Royal Air Force and was stationed in Hamburg from 1945 -- 47 as part of the British occupying forces. He met his wife, a German woman called Frieda, there, whom he later married. Harry and his wife eventually settled in Belleville, Ontario and Harry worked for many years in the carpet trade.

After his wife died ten years ago, Harry returned to a love of writing and found himself writing tightly-argued comment pieces for the Guardian website. He came to prominence in the UK after a piece entitled This Year I Shall Wear a Poppy for the Last Time was shared more than 80,000 times on Facebook. In total, his Guardian articles have been shared almost a quarter of a million times on Facebook and have attracted huge comment and debate. Of his first book Harry's Last Stand (Icon, 2014) Annie Lennox said that Harry 'is absolutely one of my heroes. Everyone should read this and be humbled.'

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780987842572
ISBN 10	0987842579
Title	The Empress of Australia
Author	Harry Leslie Smith
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Barley Hole LLC
Year published	2012-12-12
Number of pages	192
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.