From a factory canteen “somewhere in Britain.”

You have to be a certain age to remember Worker’s Playtime and Music While You Work and even older to have participated.

Both began during the war years and both ran on into the 1960s.  They started as a way of entertaining the workforce and were part of that bigger drive to maintain moral during the war.

They also reflected that more collective style of entertainment where cinema audiences would regularly take part in sing-along’s with the words flashed up on the screens, or in the dance halls where young couples would form up in a procession for the odd dance.

Not that we should be over surprised.  After all in many of the northern towns and cities it had been  the practise that when almost all the factories closed for the wakes holiday many of the workforce went off to the same holiday resort.

And I suppose in the interests of war time morale it made sense to capitalise on this and use it to forge a common sense of unity.

You see it also in many of the films of the period, particularly those dealing with people who were thrown together by the necessities of the war.

In Millions Like Us made in 1943 it was an aircraft factory while The Way Ahead followed a group of civilians conscripted into the army.

What both have in common is that they are about ordinary people from very different backgrounds and parts of the country who have a common purpose.

That common purpose was best expressed in the film Mrs Miniver.  It was an American film made in 1942 but set in a Kent village just after Dunkirk.  Here ordinary people  confronted with fear and danger rise to the occasion.  Mr Miniver using his small pleasure boat takes part in the rescue of the British Army from the beaches of Dunkirk, his wife confronts a German airman and the class barriers in the village are broken down.

And it finishes in the church with a sermon.  The building is in ruins and the village has come together to mourn the loss of those killed in an air raid.

The local inhabitants assemble at the badly damaged church where their vicar  affirms their determination in a powerful sermon:

“ We in this quiet corner of England have suffered the loss of friends very dear to us, some close to this church....... There's scarcely a household that hasn't been struck to the heart. And why? Surely you must have asked yourselves this question? Why in all conscience should these be the ones to suffer? Children, old people, a young girl at the height of her loveliness? Why these? Are these our soldiers? Are these our fighters? Why should they be sacrificed?

I shall tell you why. Because this is not only a war of soldiers in uniform. It is the war of the people, of all the people. And it must be fought not only on the battlefield but in the cities and in the villages, in the factories and on the farms, in the home and in the heart of every man, woman and child who loves freedom. ....... This is the People's War. It is our war. We are the fighters. Fight it then. Fight it with all that is in us. And may God defend the right.”

And so back to where I started and those two wartime radio programmes.

Music While You Work had begun in the June of 1940 and was a daytime radio programme of continuous live music.  It was broadcast twice a day on workdays and consisted of music from light orchestras, dance bands and military bands.

Worker’s Playtime began a year later in 1941 and was broadcast at lunchtime, three times a week from a factory canteen “somewhere in Britain.”  It was a mix of music and comedy and featured many of the most popular acts of the time.

Much of the humour played on the everyday niggles of war time, so when in the September of 1942 Gert and Daisy (Elsie and Doris Waters)* did a lunchtime session they made light of such things as the quality of the food and that old standby the gas mask which was guaranteed to get a ready response.

“I’ve just had a row with the fishmonger, it’s the fish he sold me, just smell this” 
“Oh it’s a bit on the turn, on the turn is that.” 
“On the turn its half way up the plate”

“What you carrying your gas mask around for?  
“You don’t do that at home.” 
“Well I’ve got to carry the shopping home in something”

And the usual mix of light humour which could have been heard on music halls across the country.
“Is your face dirty or is it my imagination?” 
“Well my face is clean but I don’t know about your imagination.” 

And, “Listen to this from the newspaper, ‘Dear Betty I’ve been walking out with my young man for 20 years.  Do you think it would be alright to kiss?'
After 20 years you wonder if they can remember what they are walking out for.”

Both shows survived into the post war period but a decade later they seemed a little old fashioned and a bit to reminiscent of a time gone by.  So Workers Playtime finished in 1964 and Music While You Work three years later.

And I have to admit by the time I was in my teens I too rather thought they were old hat, but with the passage of time I can see the purpose they played, the affection they were regarded in and just how entertaining some of them still are over 70 years later.

Pictures; Women in an ordinance factory, 1951, m08082, and textile workers, 1931, m 59215, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, and groups of workers and hospital staff from North Shields, some of whom like my father had been conscripted in war work as a driver, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and front cover of the DVD version of Millions Like Us

Gert and Daisy - Won't We Have a Party, 1942 British Pathe, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ_md44bOfQ