A Tommy's Sex Life WW1 Uncut

EXPLOSIONS AND GUNFIRE

SHELL WHISTLES

EXPLOSION

OK.

That will do.

All right, so I was out in the local town of Le Havre last night

with the lads.

I had a great time, I was the only officer there,

representing His Majesty's Army.

You know, we went to a bar or two, had a few drinks,

and by a few

I mean loads.

GIGGLES

Honestly, it was incredible, it was such good fun,

we were all getting on

with each other and mingling with the locals

and they seemed to enjoy it too.

Um...plenty of

le skirt around.

Which excited some of the boys.

I was actually chatting with a girl called Frambois.

Not Frambois, that's a jam.

Francoise, I think it was. At the bar.

And it was going

swimmingly,

but then my pal Victor came across

and I think things hadn't gone as well for them,

so he was a bit annoyed

and he suggested we go to the local knocking shop.

La Maison Toleree, as he put it.

I said, "Victor,

why would I

bother doing that?

"Why would I pay for it when I've got it for free? Clearly."

But he didn't seem to see my point of view

and some of the other lads as well were a bit put off

because things hadn't been going as well for

them as they had for me.

So I agreed to go along. They were all nice,

particularly Victor.

Private Victor Daniels is his name.

Private Victor Daniels from t'up North.

He talks like that, you know, "All right, Eddie, you dick?"

I'm like, "All right, Victor, drop and give me 20.

"Who's the dick now?"

It was just your classic bit of, you know... We're friends.

So anyway, to the knocking shop we did head.

Although usually, of course, an officer like myself would go to

one of the

blue lamp houses,

you know, where it's all champagne

and condoms and so on, very classy affairs.

But anyway, the privates,

they go down to the red light houses.

And I like to show I'm one of the lads,

so I sort of joined in and went with the privates

down to the red light house and said,

"Red light, blue light, don't really care

"as long as it's a green light for my little fellow."

LAUGHS

It didn't get that big a laugh.

I... I... I don't think they heard it very clearly, but, erm...

You know, they probably looked at me and thought,

"An officer visiting these parts? He must be an absolute legend...

"..or absolutely lashed!"

I'm like, "Er, I'm both.

Send me to the front line.

"Er, already there."

Well, you know, not already there, but close enough to shit myself.

Anyway, we made off to this house and as we approached the porch,

there was an old lady sat at the door.

It turns out her job

was

to inspect your pecker

before you go in to check for sexually transmitted diseases

or whatever,

VD,

all that sort of stuff.

Cos apparently what's been happening is lots of soldiers have been

deliberately contracting diseases

because it gets you 30 days

out of the trenches.

It could just be guff, but I think there could be something to it,

so obviously this woman

invites

one of us up

and John puts his hand up, our friend, another guy from Wigan.

And he was the most excited about the whole thing.

And he goes up and takes his trousers down, she has a little fondle,

but when she's doing it, the poor bugger got a full-on stiffy.

GUFFAWS Right in front of her!

Honestly, all

of us, we just,

"Lads, lads,"

it was the funniest thing I'd ever seen.

Um, you know, on a serious note,

there is nothing better for group morale

than laughing at each other's inability

to hide erections.

So anyway, we went into the house and the place was chock-a-block.

The melting pot of the Allied forces' greatest men, I would say.

From all over the world, really.

France, Australia, England, Canada...

The Canadians are the best

tippers.

Or at least they are the most guilty in that situation,

depending on how you look at it.

But, yes, we swan over... we swanned on over to the bar

and I actually bumped into Sergeant Dormer. He said...

Sergeant Dormer is the bane of my life. 30 going on about

55.

He thinks he's better than all of us.

He came over and said, "Listen, boys, this place is for men

"who miss their wives, not young scoundrels like yourselves."

We saw straight through what he was trying to do,

trying to hog all the skirt for himself. Classic Dormer.

So we sort of left and went and sat on the corner.

I mean, if you ask most senior officers, they say it's fine,

just don't let your mother find out.

"The... The British Army needs its men in the peak of physical fitness.

"The best way to do that is a good bit of shagging."

Unless, of course, you contact gonorrhoea.

But anyway, it's tough out here, you know.

There's not really much to do

other than just sort of sit around and wait.

Listening to the Fritz shout over the top of the...

You can hear them talk to each other

when the wind's blowing the right way.

You know, "Could you speak in English, please?"

Because we can't understand them.

They wouldn't have heard that

because the wind is going in the wrong direction.

It's funny to think that just over there, you know,

there are men that are wanting to turn us into landowners.

No-one wants to die a virgin.

Not that I'm a virgin, by the way.

Far from it. In fact...

# We all volunteered

# And we wrote down our names

# And we added two years to our ages

# Eager for life

# And ahead of the game

# Ready for history's pages

# And we brawled and we fought

# And we whored till we stood

# 10,000 shoulder to shoulder... #

HE COUGHS

So the way it usually works is that there are various girls at the bar.

And what you do is you go up to the Madame and give her a franc of two

and then you go and talk to one of the girls

and maybe take them upstairs

and maybe give another couple of francs.

And I still act like a gentleman, even in that environment.

I sort of introduce myself and say, "How are you doing?"

And they often reply, "I'm sorry, I don't speak English."

And I say, "You just did, I just caught you."

But then they genuinely don't speak much more English than that

and so that joke gets lost in translation.

Anyway, I was encouraged by some friends to go and see Catherine.

Um...she's the one for me, apparently.

So basically, Victor takes me upstairs

and he insists

that I go in

and see this girl.

I thought to myself, "OK, I'm up for this. For King and country."

So I followed him upstairs

and we ended up going through this sort of velvet curtain thing.

He waited outside, I went through. And there was Catherine.

Suffice to say, she's about 55 or so.

Um...

And I mean, you know,

I-I-I appreciate the maturer woman,

but my cut-off would probably be around 46, 46 and a half,

depending on how much fromage they've consumed during their life.

Let's just say that Catherine had consumed rather a lot

by the looks of things.

So, of course, she sort of...

I think she noticed that I was a little bit put out and she asked,

she said, "Est-ce que tu es timide?"

Which in French means "Are you scared?"

Or "Are you... Are you nervous?"

Depending on the translation.

And I said, "No, ma'am, essentially I'm an officer

of the British Army

"and I'm here to make sure my boys are behaving themselves."

Er, failing there!

I could hear

all the lads up the back wetting...

well, Victor on his own, but wetting himself at that.

He thought that was hilarious.

So I let this old woman sort of climb on top of me.

But there was something about her face, I recognised something,

and I couldn't quite put my finger on it, so I closed my eyes

and thought of King and country.

"For King and country, for King and country.

"For the lads."

But then when I opened them again and she was close,

I realised she was the spitting image of King George V.

I was paying money to have sex with the sodding King.

At least that's how it felt, so I sort of, you know,

I lifted her heft and sort of threw her onto the bed

and threw my money and scuttled out.

All the lads were sort of, "What happened? What happened?"

I started saying, "An officer does not speak about

"what happened behind the curtain."

But then Jack from Wigan, part of our gang, shouts out,

"Still a virgin, are you?"

Which is factually incorrect, I don't know where he's got this from.

It got a big laugh as well, it always does,

it's the most frustrating thing.

I took out a picture of Emily from back home

to prove him wrong.

Dear Emily.

HE SIGHS

# A thirst for the Hun

# We were food for the gun

# And that's what you are when you're soldiers... #

GUNFIRE

SHELL WHISTLES

EXPLOSION

PLANE PASSES OVERHEAD

GUNFIRE

MILITARY DRUMS