Q. Is the letter by the incontinent subaltern (Your problems
solved, 25 January-) for real? The correspondent in the next issue is quite right to query how pukka his regiment is. Pretending to be a waiter? I learnt my lesson on bladder control on my first dinner night nearly 30 years ago, and can recall it even now with exquisite clarity. A particularly garrulous and well-bladdered commanding officer rabbited on and on with the guests and his friends while I squirmed in agony, trying hard to will him to get up. The secret I learnt? Start with a modest glass of sherry before dinner and then build up drinking towards the end, when relief will be closer to hand. Leg reservoirs might well be necessary in his dotage but hardly now. Indeed, where is his moral fibre?
P.F., Tashkent, Uzbekistan Q. All this business about 'social sheaths' for use at over-long regimental dinners is quite unnecessary. Why not simply slip a strong diuretic into the colonel's drink at the first opportunity? Once he has been obliged to heed the call of nature, all the other officers can follow suit at will, R.V.-D., Mold, Clwyd A. More correspondence on this issue next week.
Mary Killen
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