EVENING POST SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1939. HUMOUR AND MENTAL BALANCE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 121, 18 November 1939, Page 12

EVENING POST SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1939. HUMOUR AND MENTAL BALANCE

How are the English taking the war? The reports are good; On active service' in France and at sea there is testimony of a cheerfulness in the performance of arduous duties under difficult conditions. On the Home Front observers note the grim determination of the nation to see this business through, this time with the minimum of muddle and mess. But there is another quality, invaluable in times of trouble, which we can be sure is having its influence, but which does not come prominently into the news. This is the peculiar English humour, seen at its best when times are worst. What with the constant threat of air raids, with nightly black-outs all over Britain, with heavy taxation and the innumerable restrictions, great and small, that are inevitable in the atmosphere of, war close at hand, people in Britain must be feeling the reality of war in a manner we, remote from the scene, can hardly conceive without an effort. Yet

scarcely so much as a murmur is heard. Instead, we get the sense of humour in all the circumstances and conditions finding its outlet as a relief of" the burdens and hardships. The boredom of the nightly blackout might be imagined to be almost intolerable. Yet the English quality of humour comes out in picture postcards, some of which have reached New Zealand. The "picture" is simply a blank face of sheer black —the black-out —with a small white cross somewhere in the darkness. The caption informs the recipient that the cross indicates "the position of our house." In this way the English make a joke of their troubles, and so by a process familiar to the psychologist make them easier to bear.

The imposition of a staggering extra burden of taxation would hardly seem a subject for humour, yet an instance is recorded during the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer on his latest War Budget. In announcing an increase of death duties he began a sentence with the words "In the case of deaths takipg place after today . . ." when he was interrupted by a sepulchral voice which exclaimed, "And there will be a lot"; whereupon, according to one report, the House "shook with laughter for a long time." It was a small thing, no doubt, a joke of no great calibre, but it shows £he English way of seizing on any aspect of a trying situation that seemed humorous, even in a trifling degree, and so recovering mental balance after a series of shocks. To the foreign observer it might well seem a piece of frivolous levity to look cm death and death duties as a theme •for laughter, but the philosopher understands the relief afforded by this inverted irony of English humour. This levity is really the soul of gravity, of which, a wise man, quoted by a recent "Listener," once wrote that humour is the only test. To see the funny side of the most serious things is to brace the spirit to . face them. So, parodying the popular Lambeth Walk, a song has been written of the black-out to be sung to the same rollicking tune. Here are the words, not much to look at, no doubt, but highly cheering when sung in chorus: When you've got those black-out blues Get some whitewash, paint your shoes, You'll find your way, doing the blackout walk . . . Oi! Down the inky avenue, Inky pinky parlez-vous, You'll find your way, doing the blackout walk . . . Oi! Everything dark and dreary, Feeling a trifle weary, Why don't you make your way there, go there, stay there. Keep on smiling, don't be blue, Don't let Hitler worry you, You'll find your way, doing the blackout walk . . * Oi! But at the Front is this peculiar characteristic humour seen and heard at its best. The Great War furnished innumerable examples, recorded and unrecorded. Bruce Bairnsfather rendered the spirit in graphic line in his "Old Bill" series, immortal in their picture of the English soldier of the rank and file, grumbling and grousing as he does his job, but never losing his sense of humour, that sheet-anchor of sanity in a mad world. There is not much, nothing at all, one might say, of the "Marseillaise," "Deutschland ueber Alles," or even "Rule Britannia", about the British songs of the Great War. On the surface they may seem silly or sentimental, but sung under the stress of war they served and served well. The English soldier.makes nothing of the "glory" of war that fires the Continentals, but he soon sees the funny side-and'puts it into words. The present war has not lasted long enough nor been so eventful as lo produce its "Tippcrury," bul there is a good deal of the old spirit about

"Hanging Out the Washing on tiie Siegfried Line." Here are the words: We're going. to hang out the washing on the Siegfried Line; Have you any dirty washing, mother dear? We're going to hang out the washing on the Siegfried Line, 'Cos washing day is here. Whether the weather's wet or fine, We'll rub along without a care. We're going to hang out the washing on the Siegfried Line. If the Siegfried Line's still there! It would be no more correct lo say that the Englishman takes his troubles gladly than that he takes his pleasures sadly, but he refuses to pull a long face. The stern mask of the dictator only makes him laugh, and that is why dictators are so rare in English history. Men who do not take themselves seriously—on the surface at least—are not likely to take their rulers seriously if they pose as heaven-born leaders above common humanity. Gordon Cooper, believed to have been the last Briton to leave Danzig in the present war after it had fallen into Nazi hands, gave his impressions in a broadcast: Mob emotion had been worked up to its highest pitch. I felt as'though I were living on top of a volcano. Everywhere there were huge pictures of Hitler. They certainly had a hypnotic effect on the Danzigers, for I often heard him referred to as Der Fuehrer-Gott —the Leader-God. Such a Hitler would be impossible in a land like Britain or, for that matter, France, too, for the French have the keenest sense of the narrow margin between the sublime and the ridiculous. But the German sense of humour, such as it is, does not permit of lese-ihajeste; and so a Wilhelm Hohenzollern and an Adolf Hitler grow to be monsters of fanaticism leading their countries to ruin. Germany, it has been well said, lost the last war because Wilhelm did not know when to laugh or what to laugh at. Will Nazi Germany suffer the same fate through Adolf today?