BARBARA Smoker, above, who died on April 7, 2020, was a British humanist activist and freethought advocate. She was also President of the National Secular Society (NSS) for 24 years, Chair of the British Voluntary Euthanasia Society (now known as Dignity in Dying) (1981–1985) and an Honorary Vice President of the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association.
Earlier this month, the NSS held a memorial event for Smoker, featuring speakers from Humanists UK, the Shaw Society as well as her friends and family. The memorial was followed by a drinks reception.
For years, Smoker, a prolific writer who ditched Catholicism in 1949, vowed she would one day write an autobiography, and finally did just a few years before her death. My Godforsaken Life – Memoir of a Maverick was published in 2018.
Her best-known work was Humanism: for inquiring minds. The first edition of this book, intended mainly for teenagers, was published in 1973 as a textbook for secondary schools.
The current edition (the seventh), again updated and expanded, makes a useful resource for Religious Education teachers in years 9 to 13, to present alongside information on the major world religions. Since humanism is equal to any of them today in numerical importance and esteem, its inclusion in the syllabus helps to make RE objective, fair and balanced.
I got to know Smoker when I became a member of the NSS in in the early 1970s, and when I was appointed editor of The Freethinker she took on the role of proofreader for the now defunct print version. She also contributed an enormous number of articles to the FT.
Apart from being the best proofreader I’d ever encountered, Smoker was a ferocious stickler for facts, and probably knew more about Catholicism than the Pope. That’s because she was a very pious child raised in devout Catholic family, and had set her heart on becoming a nun. So devout was she that, at school, she was described as “a saint.”
Then she decided that Catholic “voodoo” was not at all her thing, and embarked on a lifetime of aggressive godlessness, embracing a wide range of causes ranging from anti-war groups, voluntary euthanasia and LGBT rights.
She was pretty courageous too. In 1989, aged 66, she stood in front of a demonstration of Muslims calling for the death of Salman Rushdie with a simple placard saying “Free Speech“, and she remained firm even as she was physically attacked.
She was a regular at Speakers’ Corner in London and at debates and podiums around the world, including on speaking tours across the U.S. and India.
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Barbara Smoker’s book ‘Humanism: for Inquiring Minds’ was the first book I read on the subject and which helped me coalesce what I was already thinking and feeling, as a young man, into a more concrete commitment to Humanism. I was lucky enough to meet her a couple of times at London’s Conway Hall. A great lady and a courageous advocate for reason, compassion and standing up for what’s right.
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