THE LAST TATTOO

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23542, 4 July 1938, Page 16

THE LAST TATTOO

There is probably truth in the current rumour (says an English paper) that this year's Aldershot Tattoo will be the last. If so, service charities, to say nothing of the Aldershot area generally, will suffer a severe loss, while the season will lose one of its most picturesque events. The fact is, however, that the Aldershot fattoo and the many similar, if subsidiary, events of the same kind held in other parts of the country do interfere seriously with normal military training, and it is an indiqation of the seriousness of the times that all such impediments to efficiency arc being ruthlessly scrapped. It was with the same idea in view that many interunit sporting competitions in the army have been scrapped, since it was felt that these tended to create sporting specialists at the expense of the ordinary rank and file. Anyhow, it would seem that if this year’s Aldershot Tattoo is to be the last of its kind, it will end up in a blaze of glory. Rushmoor arena is to be transferred into “ The Field of the Cloth of Gold,” and the pageantry representing the meeting of Henry VIII of England and Francois I of France will be spacious and colourful. By way of contrast, there will be an air defence display, complete with sound spotters, searchlights, predictors, anti-aircraft guns, and so on by the London Anti-aircraft Division of the Territorial Army. The tattoo lasts for a fortnight in June.