大象传媒

Harry Cowley

Born in 1890 in Brighton Sussex Harry Cowley's early memories are of a Victorian England so impoverished and mean 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 later where an accident on board ship invalided him out of active service. In the 2nd he rejoined but was only allowed to help bury the fallen. Harry鈥檚 battles however didn鈥檛 end or start with the wars, his life turned into a conflict for social equality for his people at home and those who fought in the wars who were forgotten and even resented on their return.
He found families of servicemen existing in tents on the local horse racecourse or in cramped rooms sharing cramped homes with other families and menagerie. Harry was in sensed.
鈥� I thought; this wont be allowed to go on, I asked the man and hi family on the racecourse 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". 鈥淲ell when the last war 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�.
Harry Cowley set about and created a band of vigilantes who commandeered empty houses and moved the homeless into them, supporting them helping furnishing the house and protecting them from eviction; that were called on again.
During this time fascist movement was gaining momentum in England
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 mind the draught from this one, 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. They stood as one.鈥�

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