Fred Karno's Army.

Reading "The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry" I am pleased to see that they have included the songs sung by ordinary soldiers. The usual war poets (Brooke, Owen & Sassoon etc) just don't do a great deal for me but I do find these songs far more compelling.

I particularly like this one called "Fred Karno's Army" which is sung irreverently to the tune of the hymn "The Church's One Foundation"! What I like about the songs of the British infantry in World War One is how self-deprecating they are - this is just one wonderful example.

"We are Fred Karno's Army, the ragtime infantry.

We cannot fight, we cannot shoot, what bleeding use are we?

And when we get to Berlin we'll hear the Kaiser say,

'Hoch! Hoch! Mein Gott, what a bloody rotten lot are the ragtime infantry.'

Fred Karno was a late 19th/early 20th century British music hall comedian who specialised in slap-stick humour, he is credited with the custard-pie-in-face gag and worked with the likes of Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel before they moved onto bigger and better things with the advent of cinema.