FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1915
1915 - 0877.PDF
NOVEMBER 12, 1915. IfiioHfl "Lord, what fools these mortals be."—Midsummer Night's Dream. NOT since childhood have I been interested in those Life Guards with their shining breast-plate and helmet, astride their horses so sedately, half in and half out of their little alcoves in Whitehall. I had their like at home in those days, each fitting into its cut-out in the false bottom of a cardboard box. With cone-shaped wooden trees I could make a fair representation of the Mall with its beautifully-pruned plane trees, the like of which cannot be found. These many years I have sat within sound of the bands of my Lord Mayor's Procession, and moved not one step towards the window which should give me sight of the gay uniforms passing the end of the street. To-morrow —I am writing this on Monday—I am going out into the streets. Our Royal Flying Corps is going to take part in the procession, and I am going to cheer them as they pass, these first and second A.Ms., these patient good-humoured optimists, who cheerfully work through the long hours of the night when necessary, to place in the Eastern, morning sunshine, all spick and span and ready for service, their charge " gone west" the previous evening. But, I shall confess it, this is not the only reason I shall see the show to-morrow. I have, like many of my age, been getting old too quickly. I realise that I have been unconsciously travelling the route I decided for at the forked roads where stands the eighteenth milestone, where I chose the road leading to manhood, where I became, somehow, ashamed of youth, ashamed, unnecessarily, of those past eighteen miles. I have plodded on, and never looked back, and—I am grown drab. To-morrow I am going out to feast me on the bright colours, on the Gilded Coach. I will buy one of those penny streamers depicting the procession as it never happened—this time, I hope, printed in England. I am going to call it The Lord Mayor's Show, and not Pro cession, and I am going to cheer. It is well that we take our sorrows stolidly, but why ot necessity should we also take our pleasures sadly ? Too eagerly did we decide for manhood at that early milestone, too easily did boyishness drop from us. So manly have we become, that we have ceased to be men, and are but self-conscious machines, dreading to smile, fearful of laughter lest we should suffer in our dignity. It is time enough to count our leaves, and mark their russet colour, when they are fallen ; remaining on the tree, let us think them green, and notice not their changing tint. Is it, then, something of which to be ashamed—to admire colour, to enjoy, and attempt to copy nature so resplendent in her hues? Must we make this world dreary to ourselves by acknowledging only the greys and the drabs ? Shall we cut out entirely the scarlets and the blues, the crimson and the gold? Did the Great Creator ever intend that the beautiful butterfly should become a moth ? Yet I fear I have chosen a bad year to emerge from the grey. This is a grey year. We clothe our men in khaki— we paint our ships of war, drab. To-morrow I fear I shall not see those gay uniforms, the sight of which I have voluntarily missed these many years. My Lord Mayor's Coach shall be gilded as of old, I doubt not, yet it shall look odd and out of place in this procession of drab men—business-men—men who mean business—men who object to being taught the business of " kultur," knowing as they do that it is a drab business. And to-morrow I shall see those men of the Royal Flying Corps—our men. They shall be garbed in grey, and shall look sober in their mien, because this is a drab year, yet I shall give them a cheer because they are our men, and because I can discern beneath their business uniform of khaki the golden ptinciple of purpose. And those other drab men—those of this regiment and of that. Those of Scotland and of Wales. Those of Ireland and of Australia, of Canada, of New Zealand, of all our glorious colonies, they shall all be drab, because this is a drab year. But beneath the drab there is colour—the most glorious colour—the colour of scarlet —scarlet blood that flows and ebbs for Motherland. And these are our youth and manhood. Many of them not much past that eighteenth milestone, backward of which I have taught myself to be ashamed. At the forked roads they have become grey, but to some pur pose—to fight for all that is beautiful. Those of my kidney became grey to no purpose except that of trying to pretend manhood. Manhood ! can anything be more manly than this ? Let us throw off this stupid assumption of gravity. Let us no more pretend that we do not admire colour. Those of us that have a fondness for drab, and are of military age, let us assume the drab of the khaki uniform. Let us for the nonce become homeopathic and kill drab by drab. And those of us that be beyond the drab age except that of our seeking, yet can we do something to help. We can refrain from standing in the streets like wooden men when the troops and the recruits pass, as though it were no business of ours. We watch them as they pass from the Horse Guards' Parade on their way to the station—these recruits—played away by the band ; recruits going to don the drab uniform on our behalf, yet we watch them in silence. It were unmanly to give them a cheer. We should feel silly should we show by our behaviour how we honoured them. And to-morrow is my Lord Mayor's Show, and I am going out into the streets as I did of yore, because I have realised that it is of no use becoming drab without purpose. I doubt not it will be a wet day, and perhaps with fog. England, methinks, has caught the drab fever in a mild form, and must needs become drab just when I have woken up and wish to regain some of those wasted moments since the eighteenth milestone. Yet I shall not be downcast. I am going out into the streets, and although the colour that I wish for will not be there, still shall I cheer. 877
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
