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|title=Don't Let My Past Be Your Future: A Call to Arms

|author=Harry Leslie Smith

|date=September 2017

|isbn= 978-1472123459

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Don't Let My Past Be Your Future: A Call to Arms is part autobiography and part rallying call for society to tackle the systemic, endemic and debilitating inequality faced by the people of the United Kingdom, particularly in the North. Through reflecting on his own experiences during his childhood, Harry Leslie Smith has painted a frank and uncompromising picture of the grim, appallingly miserable childhood he had to endure due to the poverty faced by his family contrasted with the, shamefully still, grim and miserable lives many people endure today in a country ravaged by cuts, austerity and political turmoil.

As a proud Barnsley lass who has seen the impact of inequality and poverty throughout my life on the area in which I was born, this book had a deep personal resonance for me. Smith's pride and passion about the people of Barnsley is evident throughout, as is his anger at the injustice faced by people in this town and others like it in Northern England. It is a pleasure to see Barnsley, and indeed the North generally, discussed in terms other than demonising the people who inhabit these towns, gutted by years of indifference, cruelty and systematic prejudice. However, the palpable sadness of Smith's childhood, from his father's spiritual collapse and his mother's emotional bankruptcy to his sister's feeling of inevitable hopelessness due to her misfortune at being born a girl and thus left unable to escape the cycle of poverty cut me deeply not only because it echoes the lives of many people today but because then, as now, it was preventable. That is the message I'd like people to take away from Harry Leslie Smith's poignant, powerful and poetic work- we can make our lives and the lives of those around us better, we can challenge the notion that capitalism and neoliberalism are the only way to survive and we can create a society which is tolerant, just and fair. It will take more than just hope but with determination, the willingness to engage politically, and the courage to see the world with open eyes and challenge the status quo we can heed the warnings laid bare in Don't Let My Past Be Your Future. Together, we can change the world.

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[[Category:Autobiography]]