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.
Blast from the Past: Demobbed (Leslie Crossley & Eric Carlton, 1919)
I’m in my dear old ‘civvies’, and I’ve wished them all goodbye
The colonel said ‘so long old bean’ And a tear fell from his eye
The Adjutant saluted me, gave me his hand and said ‘Good day’
The Quartermaster drank my beer and gave me ten years’ pay.
In vain the Sergeant-Major moaned with hand upon his heart
“I never thought when I met you, that we should ever part!”
The canteen man chalked me a pint; the cook said I looked ‘grand’.
‘Abide with Me’ and ‘Rest in Peace’ they played upon the band
So it’s no more darned ‘Reveille’ and ‘Come to the Cookhouse Door’
Fall in men to do CB for the duration of the war
It’s farewell to Church Parades, to mess fatigues as well
I’ve finished killing nasty Huns and wishing them to Hell
And when I go out for a walk without a pack, what luck!
To forming fours I say ‘napoo!’, and so will my ‘old duck’.
When it comes to gas attacks I’m ‘parley-vouing’ – what!
Because I’ll the gas I’ll cotton to is a penny in the slot!
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