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Aviation History
1916
1916 - 0943.PDF
OCTOBER 26, 1916. [/QGHT] Armchair Reflections " Dreamer" hylh UNDOUBTEDLY we are losing the " pretty " habit. No longer do we toy with things ; playfulness is to the children, we are a nation who think only of the things that matter. Because the shops are to ckee earlier than ever before, I do not get into a pother ; I have lost the pretty habit of shop-window gazing. There are things that I require, they come to me in the ordinary course. My food arrives from some where which is outside my business, I know only that it is on the table at the proper time. My clothing, scant in its newness as befitting the times, comes by a visit to my tailor. The train brings me to my office in the morning, a conductress takes my small coins when I travel by omnibus. The days come and go, I get all that I require, I require nothing beyond that which I get. We are grown sensible. We have accepted many things as the inevitable during this upheaval of affairs, there is plenty of room for the majority of them to remain with us to our benefit when the war is ended. There is little doubt but that the war came just in time to save us from ourselves. A few more years of fooling with pretty habits, and we should have become mentally effete, barren of ideas, worn out by excessive indulgence in the pretty little things that are the undoing of foolish nations. We had grown accustomed to girls at the telephone exchange. We knew when we removed the receiver from the hook that a female voice would inquire the number of our pleasure, but we would ask in a short and business-like way for Gerrard nought-one- double-nought, without prefix or affix. There was no wanting in courtesy, it was a simple matter of business. When Phyllis first stood behind the hen- coup like opening at the station to issue my ticket, I always said " Please " and " Thank-you " in my best and most courtly manner, although in order to see through the opening I had to stoop in a most uncom fortable and undignified way. To-day I just slam down the money and say the name of the station required. Pretty manners take up valuable time in business hours, and elderly gentlemen who became wise before me are inclined to say cutting things if kept waiting. There are many women in London to-day wearing trousers. A couple of years ago I should have had to manoeuvre round that word when used with relation to women. They were supposed to be " unmentionables" for reasons unknown. There are, I say, women in London wearing trousers. They are window cleaners, and larhp cleaners, and in some cases van drivers. Not under all conditions are these suitable wear, under some conditions the old order of things would be absurd. Yet it is of the new order of things, and because women also are losing the pretty habit of being ridiculous, realising that business is business. In countries that had grown sensible before uf, women workers in certain vocations had worn trousers for years. Many things have gone, I hope never to return. We do not require public-houses to remain open well into the following day. Clothes do not make the man (excepting only khaki), although we have been long enough in realising it. The " Pot-hat " has gone to pot. The bird of gay plumage has moulted his pretty waistcoats. We are grown a nation of workers with no use for the pretty habits. It may well be that the war has pulled the aviation industry out of the fire. Once I wrote in these pages a word of encouragement to those constructors so courageously watching a dwindling bank-balance the while they waited for official recognition and help. Possibly some pretty little habits have fallen from the order of things, and stern business necessity pointed to the only possible way of meeting demand. If such a pretty habit there have been, let it pass into limbo with the others, and not come creeping back with the establishment of peace, and the easing off of immediate necessity. War found us wanting in aeroplanes, and those which we had were wanting in fitness for the purpose for which they were required. It would have been absolutely impossible to have brought things to the present high state of efficiency without the help of the civilian constructor, and the civilian designer. It is certain that after the war progress in aero nautics -will continue with unabating speed. I don't want to see the whole of the industry carried out in huge Government yards, to the exclusion of those who have strained every nerve to place our Flying Services where they are to-day. I have not yet lost the pretty habit of grumbling, although there are signs of its abatement. People point to our Navy, and draw my attention to the fact that our battleships are not all erected in Government yards, and wonder that I should wonder whether aeroplanes will be. Still, I say I don't know. There are some pretty little habits still with us ; we have not lost them all yet. And one of them used to be— I will put it that way—the habit of imagining that brains CQUM not possibly be covered by anything but a tin-hat. Tin-hats and pot-hats, gold braid and blue overalls, it is all one so that we get that which we require, and anyone of the various wearers could be equally clever in the other's clothing. 939
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