ENTERTAINING THE ARMY
SIR,—I have been in the army for more than seventeen months, and I feel more and more disturbed by the failures of the authorities, including the B.B.0 and E N.S.A., to provide proper education and decent entertainment for the men in the Forces.
I wish the responsible quarters would realise that it is not the question of presenting the entertainment the majority of the men ask for, but to try and give them something better, to make these men discover the colourfulness of good music and beauty of good books and poetry and classics. After all, this country is becoming very much inclined towards Socialism, and we expect the younger genera- tion to take a leading part in the reconstruction after the war. But how can they ao so if no attempt is made to equip them with the necessary weapons?
Whenever the Forces get a rest out of their daily routine work and they switch the wireless on, dame music is certain to blare out of the loudspeaker. There may be a music-hall entertainment, which is so dull that you cannot even laugh about it. The jokes are not witty, not even funny. The same applies to the productions of the E.N.S.A. Most of them are cheap and vulgar. They might appeal to the masses, but their continued presentation is poison to the average man and woman.
The majority of the soldiers I have been in contact with don't read; and if they read, they either read detective stories or those books showing beautiful legs and half-naked women on the cover. We want mobile libraries, reaching the remotest outposts, wherever troops are. We want more lectures to make men understand that there are higher and better ideals in life than jazz and legs; we want to make the younger generation learn to think.
And there is another disquieting factor arising ort of the lack of decent entertainment—Drunkenness. Certain trains—I know of my- self—in the south and north of the country, are being avoided by civilians and many members of the Forces; they arc packed with soldiers yelling, singing and using bad language. They spend all their money on drinks. They certainly don't realise what they are like when they get tight like that, but the mere sight and noise and behaviour of these men is sickening. It is shocking, too, how some women in the Forces have taken to drink, not really becaus.- they like it, but they want to feel equally " big " towards their male comrades.
We want to see a generatior rising up, healthy in body and thought and able to take the shape of our new world into their very own Postage on this issue : Inland and Overseas, Id.
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