Sunday, 13th January, 1946

This is an entry in a year-long project to post-blog the demobilisation experience for British servicemen at the end of the Second World War. See here for an introduction to the project and here for a brief overview of the demobilisation process.

"Home Chat" from Punch:

"Daddy, do you still salute soldiers?"
"No, Peter."
"Why not?"
"Because they do not salute me."
"Peter will think that very small-minded of you, darling. Fancy a grown man behaving so petulantly!"
"Why should I salute soldiers?"
"Peter and I understood it was not the soldier you saluted, but his badges of rank."
"Yes, and as it happens, clever, a private does not have badges of rank!"
"You used to salute the privates, Daddy."
"I returned the salutes privates gave me. Now they do not give me any salutes. I do not return them."
"Would you salute a general if you saw one?"
"No, Peter."
"Not if he was in uniform?"
"Not if he was in a cocked hat, so long as I was in my demob suit."
"I don't suppose Peter will think that makes any sense, darling. You first say it is the uniform you salute, and now you pretend you do not salute unless you wear a uniform yourself. You might as well say you would not raise your hat to a lady unless you were wearing a skirt."
"If you were in uniform, daddy, and you saw a general in his demob suit, would you salute him then?"
"That would depend entirely on who the general was."
"Now, darling, you are getting just like the people who used to make you so cross. You said once that they were all in the Pay Corps, and were too shy to salute an officer unless they had been introduced ..."

Comments

[Erik Lund]

And here is why _Punch_ failed. The first law of English humour says that when "unless you were wearing a skirt" comes out of your keyboard, you Run With It.