大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by a volunteer from Southern Counties Radio CSV and has been added to the website on behalf of Harry Cowley with his permission and he fully understand the site's terms and conditions.

Born in 1890 in Brighton Sussex Harry Cowley recounts the society he lived in around and during the time of the war. Spending his early years in a Victorian England so impoverished he and his siblings ate cast off food from the gutter. He recounts memories of both the 1st Great War and the 2nd at 14 he joined the Army as a drummer boy transferring to the Navy. Three years into his commission a spar hit him on board ship invaliding him out of active service. He later volunteered again to join the Great War but was only allowed to help bury the fallen in graves.
Harry鈥檚 battles however didn鈥檛 end or start with the Wars, his life turned into a continual conflict on behalf of the soldiers returning from war and for equality for people at home, to raise the lot of the poor and particularly those who fought in the Wars who were forgotten and even resented on their return.
In the past there were no catch nets for the impoverished since lobbied for and created as social security. Families were found existing in tents on the local horse racecourse or in cramped rooms sharing a home with other families and menagerie. Harry was in sensed.
Harry started to act on his emotions when in 1921 he had been introduced to an ex-serviceman his wife and children living in a tent on Brighton racecourse. Harry recounts,
鈥� I thought; this wont be allowed to go on, I asked the man 鈥榓re you prepared to go in a house if me and my men find you one鈥� he said yes鈥� So we got together our boys and at 3 in the morning under cover of dark we forced our way into an empty house in Cheltenham Place and moved the family in鈥欌�� Harry didn鈥檛 have too much trouble forming a band of vigilantes who commandeered empty houses and moved the homeless into them, supporting them helping furnishing the house, protecting them from eviction and the law who鈥檚 hands were tied if the people could be moved in without their knowledge. 鈥淲ell when this last War (2nd) ended Brighton was loaded with empty houses, yer see. There was a lot of people buying empty houses cheap and selling them or renting at exorbitant prices, people couldn鈥檛 afford them, One day I went to do some work in an old ladies home, she saved 拢400 in her life, her and her husband was old people. I valued the house at 拢600 and they was being asked 拢1,600. I thought this don鈥檛 come right, your 拢400 gone up in the air and you鈥檒l never live long enough to buy the place and be secure鈥�. Speculators became very wary of Harry as his men and requisitions increased, in some legal doubt, until a 鈥榬equisition law鈥� was speedily legislated upon and became enforced much to popular approval.
During this time fascism was gaining momentum in England Harry recounts 鈥� When I read about the brutality to the Jews anything like that I could cry and have cried. And I felt it was my duty to fight against it鈥�. I was met one midnight by some of them in Middle Street. They were mob handed and I was alone; they had bottles, they broke my leg and I was eight months in hospital. And one night they sent a mob down from London in one of them 鈥榓rmoured cars鈥� what they had. They done me house in Grove Street in the middle of the night. They brought bricks with slogans wrapped around them like 鈥榤ind the draught from this one!鈥� and broke me windows with them. So next Sunday there was a meeting by the Fascist League on The Level. I got some of my boys together and mingled em in the crowd and I told em when I put my finger up away you go鈥�. 鈥� I put my finger up and away they went. The ambulances were going to and fro with broken noses and black eyes and blood spurting everywhere.鈥� 鈥淣o mine wasn鈥檛 rough boys; they were conscientious.鈥�

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