1946–59

Abstract

There was a widely-held view throughout the war that the nature of the forces — the snobbery and class-based elitism in particular – had to be changed. The old style was bad enough in peace time when all soldiers were volunteers, but with wartime conscription it was felt to be intolerable that men should not only have to make the sacrifice of serving under compulsion during the best years of their life, but that they also had to experience the humiliating restraints imposed by antiquated conventions and regulations. It was by no means only a question of social division, although throughout the war NCCL recorded many instances of officers instructing the staffs of bars and hotels not to admit their men, and even cases of officers insisting that other ranks actually leave restaurants, for example, if the officers wished to use them. There were complaints more serious than this, and one of them was that the troops were not sufficiently encouraged to think for themselves on weighty matters of the day, but instead treated as hopeless blockheads.