RIP Harry Leslie Smith

Last week the much-loved veteran socialist Harry Smith died aged 95 He was. A tireless campaigner for social justice and the NHS,, fought against racism all his life and served in the RAF in the war. He will be greatly missed. On the same day that Harry died, but 200 years earlier the English poet and artist William Blake was born - one of the great figures in our long history of radical politics. And by chance, on my way to an exhibition at the Barbican I was stopped in my tracks by the pub at 10 Old Street on the site where Blake had his house. Nothing remains of the original building,although his grave can be found in a nearby churchyard. This seemed an appropriate way to mark Harry’s passing.

LONDON
I wander thro’ each charter’d street,
Near where the charter’d Thames does flow.
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man,
In every Infants cry of fear,
In every voice: in every ban,
The mind-forg’d manacles I hear

How the Chimney-sweepers cry
Every blackning Church appalls,
And the hapless Soldiers sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls

But most thro’ midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlots curse
Blasts the new-born Infants tear
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse