Catalogue Number
NMLH.2020.1
Object Name
Jacket
Place
Calais Jungle
People
Harry Leslie Smith
Events
2010s Migrant Crisis, 2010s Austerity era
Description
A brown leather jacket, worn by campaigner Harry Leslie Smith.
This jacket was worn by the anti-austerity campaigner and writer, Harry Leslie Smith, when he visited refugee camps in France including the 'Calais Jungle' where refugees live in extreme poverty waiting to make the crossing from France to England. Smith wrote comparing the conditions in the camps to those he had witnessed as a soldier in Displaced Persons camps in Germany following the end of the Second World War. He begged British politicians to show the same compassion to today's refugees as the British government of 1945 had done to the 200,000 Polish refugees who were moved to the UK following the War. Speaking in The Guardian, Smith said: "The people in the Jungle's lives have been shorn of hearth, home and kin. Politicians in Britain have turned their back on humanity, which is as brutal as averting your eyes from a sinking ship. [...] We can no more ignore this tragedy than a person can ignore the cries of an abandoned child and call themselves human."
Harry Leslie Smith was born in Yorkshire in 1923, and grew up in poverty as the son of an unemployed coalminer. In 1926, Smith's sister died from tuberculosis, with the family unable to afford to take her to the doctor. This influenced Harry throughout his life, and in his later years he became a strong campaigner for public services, including the NHS. He also campaigned strongly against income inequality and the austerity policies of David Cameron's Conservative government, speaking at the Labour Party conference in Manchester in 2014, and in support of refugees during the European migration crisis. Smith passed away in November 2018, aged 95.
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