The Wipers Times

[CoffmanStarter]

A simply brilliant 90 mins from the BBC, Ian Hislop and Nick Newman (both of Private Eye fame). So it's not mil aviation ... but very military and extremely poignant.

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02668/wiperstimes_2668792b.jpg

A true story ...

When Captain Fred Roberts discovered a printing press in the ruins of Ypres, Belgium in 1916, he decided to publish a satirical magazine called The Wipers Times - "Wipers" being army slang for Ypres. Full of gallows humour, The Wipers Times was poignant, subversive and very funny. Produced literally under enemy fire and defying both authority and gas attacks, the magazine proved a huge success with the troops on the western front. It was, above all, a tribute to the resilience of the human spirit in the face of overwhelming adversity. In his spare time, Roberts also managed to win the Military Cross for gallantry.

Just loved the line from the a$$ of a Lt. Col. "Are you being offensive enough" :D

I think Captain Roberts MC would have liked PPRuNe :ok:

BBC iPlayer : The Wipers Times (http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01d0zrj/The_Wipers_Times/)

iPlayer Expiry Date 18/09/13

Best ...

Coff.

[barnstormer1968]

I enjoyed it too.
There are a couple of examples of wipers times articles to view on the BBC website.

[MPN11]

One of those rare moments when I applaud the BBC.

Excellent programme, and much enjoyed on many different levels. :ok:

[Hastalavista]

My thoughts entirely. Watched it on the strength of the review in the Torygraph and was glad that I did so.

HLV

[NutLoose]

I too thought it excellent, and to do that with all that was going on around them, really was a well written and produced show, shame the Times couldn't add a belated obituary to them both.

[SOSL]

Wonderful story. Made me feel humble.

Rgds SOS

[MG]

Really enjoyed it, so good to see a knock at the Daily Mail and the endless poetry!
The very slightest of gripes, and this is TV-wide, is that it would be nice, just once, to hear a proper Nottinghamshire/Derbyshire accent.

[NutLoose]

Me Duck !

:E

[MG]

Eyup yoth, got any tuffeys?

[Duplo]

Great programme... Palin was genius...

[The Helpful Stacker]

The very slightest of gripes, and this is TV-wide, is that it would be nice, just once, to hear a proper Nottinghamshire/Derbyshire accent.

Oi yer chatty bugger, do you want a cob in your snap box?


Must say I really enjoyed that. Didn't manage to catch it first time so am grateful for the link (had a few hours to kill this afternoon).

[TomJoad]

Wonderful. Made me cry made me laugh, made me angry. Yes loved the hits at the Daily Mail (wonder if they were reading PPrune) and more than one or two nods to Blackadder humour. Watch it, well worth it.

Tom

[Tankertrashnav]

Ian Hislop is one of the very few TV personalities I would really love to meet. I even gritted my teeth and watched him being interviewed on the truly awful One Show so that I could learn a bit more about this programme, which was as good as I hoped.

The very slightest of gripes, and this is TV-wide, is that it would be nice, just once, to hear a proper Nottinghamshire/Derbyshire accent.

Actors have only 3 all-purpose accents - south east (inc Lunnon), oop north, and a general purpose "Mummerset" which does duty for all points from Bristol to Lands End.

This one got the 'oop north' for the ORs and "posh south east" for the officers, but that minor annoyance apart the programme was brilliant. The badges were spot on, by the way.

[MG]

Tankertrashnav, agree with you on the generality of accents and the badges. My grandad was Notts & Derbys in the First War, having been conscripted in 1916 from his job as a miner. We also had family who worked the Kimberley mines in SA, as Capt Roberts did, so I was watching very keenly on all aspects.

[ORAC]

Tankertrashnav, agree with you on the generality of accents and the badges.

The lost voices of Britain before WW1: German recording of British PoWs reveals a rural society rich in now extinct accents that varied from village to village (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2389902/German-recording-British-PoWs-reveals-rural-society-rich-regional-accents-lost.html)

The recordings were discovered by British academic John Adams
They are believed to be the earliest known recordings of its kind
Experts fascinated that the Oxfordshire accent has completely changed
Recordings made by Alois Brandl and Wilhelm Doegen
They will be unveiled at next year's First World War centenary events

[November4]

Complaining that the accents were not correct is a bit pointless when you read in ORAC's link

Among the men recorded was John Hickman, a musician from Bletchingdon, north of Oxford, who experts say has an Oxfordshire accent completely different from that of today

and

'Regional accents were much stronger.

'This was a period when you could tell people from one village to another, it wasn't just county to county.'

[smujsmith]

I don't watch a lot on the Beeb these days, but I watched this and agree with most of the preceding inputs. Great TV, such a pity they prefer to push out soaps. Bring on some more please aunty Beeb.

Smudge :ok:

[WASALOADIE]

I concur, it was a brilliant program, humour mixed with fact. Great writing from Hislop and co.

[Broadsword***]

The very slightest of gripes, and this is TV-wide, is that it would be nice, just once, to hear a proper Nottinghamshire/Derbyshire accent.

Don't get me started. From the stock yokel accents on Doc Martin to the Lancastrianized 'West Yorkshire' drawls of Last Tango in Halifax, so many otherwise excellent TV shows are spoiled by the clumsy portrayal of regional accents. If they can't get it right, I would rather they just stuck to standard English.

[Dengue_Dude]

Great entertainment and all the better because it was based upon facts.

Reminded me of Rompers Green that Chas Finn-Kelcey did at Lyneham in the 1970s.

[MG]

'Complaining that the accents were not correct is a bit pointless when you read in ORAC's link' - ok, I wasn't going to put anything more on about this, but I can't let that go unchallenged. Yes, some accents have changed, but I knew my grandad well and clearly remember how he spoke. If anything, it's a strongly, more defined accent that stems from the very close environment of mining communities. So, no, it's not pointless and, yes, it matters as much as the correct look of the uniforms.

[TomJoad]

Can anybody educate me as to the meaning of the cloth type flash that was on the back of some of the uniforms. Just below the collar line, looked like a blue background with a vertical line - was it a badge of rank or other?

[Tankertrashnav]

I'm pretty sure that was some sort of formation sign, such as indicating the brigade or division they were serving in, as opposed to their regiment which was indicated by the cap badge. Certainly not a rank badge. I'll need to ask a chum who's an acknowledged expert on these matters - no doubt he'll know.

[ColinB]

For a different view, it was well played but surely a bastard son of Oh What a Lovely War. which had all those marvellous and evocative songs,

[Whenurhappy]

The Wipers Times was one of many irreverent publications. More recently I remember the eagerly-awaited Deserter Times produced in PSAB c 2001-2. It was a brilliant piece of parody which wound up the US leadership on base, including the interestingly-named Brig Gen Gilmary Michael Hostage III. His antics provided the inspiration for much of the copy!

[alwayslookingup]

Uncovered: lost British accents from prison camps of first world war | World news | theguardian.com (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/nov/09/world-war-british-accent-recordings)

Ref ORAC's Post 15, the above link has some examples of the WW1 recordings. I'm not sure about the other recordings, but in the one of the Aberdeen guy reading the Parable of the Talents the accent is easily recognisable as one spoken in country areas of Aberdeenshire today. Any readers got memories of the culture shock of the first meeting with locals at RAF Buchan?

[TomJoad]

Any readers got memories of the culture shock of the first meeting with locals at RAF Buchan?


Fit like? Aye nae sa bad. And who the hell was "Ken" never did find out.

Wonderful place and the folk have a great sense of humour.

[goudie]

I wonder how many original copies of the the 'Wiper's Times', and it variants, still exist?

[NutLoose]

One would imagine a lot of copies ended up wiping some ones bottom..

[goudie]

Yes they were, as illustrated in the film.

[ericferret]

Didn't see the program but I have a feeling that the marks on the backs of uniforms might have been for unit identification from the air by low flying recce aircraft.
Have seen a similar thing with metal triangles.

On the Notts accent I was born just north of Nottingham and at one point we were given elocution lessons as it had been determined by the gods that we spoke the worst english in the country and were in need of help. Red Lorry, Yellow Lorry, Red Lorry, Yellow Lorry, I remember it well and also the fact that it did not last long.

"Mam Ive lost me shot, I took it off to play causey edge and a dog ran off with it down jitty"

Mother I have lost my shirt, I had removed it to play a ball game involving bouncing a ball off a pavement edge when a dog ran off with it down a an access reserved for pedestrians and cyclists.

After a couple of years in the military while on leave, a girl I went to school with was heard to say "Don't he talk posh". Even strong accents wear thin if not practiced.

[smujsmith]

Aahh, accents,

I was born and bred in the region of north Staffordshire, just outside of Brummijum (Birmingham). I left my little village to join the RAF in 1969, and never returned until last year. On arrival at Halton I was initially entitled "Brummy" Smith, due to my accent. This later became Smudge when the rest understood what I was saying. Throughout my service career, of 30 years, somehow or other and wherever I roamed, I always had a mate who was from Yorkshire. It was no surprise then, when attending a reunion with my old school chums, from the village in 69, last year, when they all said, "where did you get that Yorkshire accent from". It was a very pleasant question as I was expecting the ubiquitous "don't you talk posh".

Smudge :ok:

[November4]

The well know South American river book shop has "The Wipers Times: The Complete Series of the Famous Wartime Trench Newspaper".

The book has been re-released to tie in with the programme.

[The Old Fat One]

Have it recorded and watched about 20 minutes of it at the time.

Given the mindless bilge that passes for TV these days, it was uplifting to watch something that didn't leave me wanting a swift chunder.

Please can we have many more programs like this!

[clicker]

I recall reading a book on WWI about the metal triangles were used for ID reasons but it also helped German machine gunners pick out the troops from the reflections.

I believe these and the colours patches were to help units to keep together and stop "Tommy Atkins" from following the units on his flanks.

[Wrathmonk]

I believe these and the colours patches were to help units to keep together and stop "Tommy Atkins" from following the units on his flanks.

Or shooting the wrong person in the 'fog of war'? The precursor to DZ flashes?

[Yamagata ken]

@eric a dog ran off with it down jitty That would work perfectly in Warks as well as Notts. Where's my boytel? I need to do some work in the leat.

[PapaDolmio]

The metal triangles were issued to troops prior to the Battle of the Somme and were attached to the back of the pack. The idea being that the sun would glint on the metal and allow observers to work out how far the attacking troops had advanced. A reasonable idea bearing in mind that once attacking troops had left the front line communications were problematic to say the least.

[Chugalug2]

I'm not sure that we've got any nearer deciding what the small cloth patch immediately below the collar at the rear of the officer's jacket stood for, though I bow to Tankertrashnav's superior knowledge in these matters that it indicated the formation (Brigade, Division?) of the wearer.
It was so small that it would have no tactical value, even on the ground let alone from the air. If it did indicate the formation, then it would have been common throughout the British Army then, surely? I've never come across it before. Could it have been a "Sherwood Foresters" device? Certain Regiments wear a cap badge front and rear because of heroic past deeds. Could this be such a regimental historical device? Like TomJoad, I've no idea but I bet someone here does, or knows someone else who does...

[NutLoose]

One would have thought it would indicate an officer as a rally point on a battlefield after all they tended to follow them, is it not similar to WW2 where officers had white stripes on the back of their helmets to delineate them from the rest of the bods, without making them a target?

Remember they had whistles, so hearing one you would then look around for a source, and a badge would help.

[ColinB]

is it not similar to WW2 where officers had white stripes on the back of their helmets to delineate them from the rest of the bods, without making them a target?
Weren't the stripes on the back of helmets gas detector paint so you could see if gas was present by looking at the person in in front of you? This was supplemented by the use of brassards.

[Wensleydale]

My badge theory? Moving around at night was a hazardous occupation during WW1 - especially when you had to follow the chap in front along the myriad of communications and supply trenches. Even in the rear of the trenches, just one slip off the duckboard could prove fatal. However, when patrolling no-mans' land at night, one had to follow the correct chap through the gaps in the wire while maintaining complete silence.

I suspect that the badges greatly helped unit cohesion in this game of "follow-my-leader".