Most of us never live into our nineties, let alone learn how to make the most of our final, most experienced years.For anti-poverty crusader Harry Leslie Smith — whose 95-year-old life is in peril in hospital in Belleville, Ont., with his sons at his side — life in some ways seemed to begin at 90, when the fledgling, self-published author caught fire with readers on both sides of the Atlantic, improbably ending up mattering most to a legion of followers less than a third his age.How many millennials do you know who hang on a great-great-grandparent’s every word? Harry knows thousands — each moved by the power of his stark, eyewitness warning not to let life drift back toward the squalor, hunger and creeping authoritarianism he endured as a child in Britain during the Great Depression.And they were out in force on Twitter, where Smith’s quarter-million followers unleashed a “wave of kindness” and encouragement after Harry’s son John took over his account at the hospital on Tuesday, issuing heartrending medical updates on the attempt to stabilize his father’s dangerously low blood pressure.“Cardiologist says it might be another pneumonia or bladder infection causing low BP. But by his tone errs on the side of pessimism as to how this ends for Harry,” read one of John’s messages during his around-the-clock bedside vigil.“He sleeps deep, his legs jerking like he’s riding a bike,” read another. “And, I wonder if in his dreams, he’s 7 again and riding his uncle’s bike from his grandparents’ house to the moors, where he felt free from the sting of his poverty.”Read more:Why millennials are lapping up Harry Leslie SmithSmith’s get-political messageSmith’s Canadian book tourThen, a short while later, “I get the feeling that in this hospital room, tonight, I am watching history die here: my own, Britain’s and even Canada’s.& ...
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