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Tallis in Wonderland

Don’t Tell Him, Pike!

Raymond Tallis from the home front in the war of words.

I’m watching the classic BBC sitcom Dad’s Army. It is 1940, the hour of maximum danger. The survivors of a sunken German U-boat have been picked up by a fishing vessel and taken to Walmington-on-Sea, where the Home Guard, under the leadership of Captain Mainwaring, are to hold them until a proper military escort arrives. The U-boat captain, undaunted by his situation, demands Mainwaring’s name so that he can put him “on a list” for when the war has ended with victory for the Axis. Private Pike, who is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, defiantly sings a song which describes Hitler in terms the Führer might not approve of.

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