Spotlight on Ask a Policeman 1

In the Air

‘Ask a Policeman’, one of Will Hay’s finest films, was released on 28^th August 1939 - a turbulent year in British history. The next few posts will look at some rather serious historical points that this extremely funny film raises, but let’s begin by looking at items of news reported in the Daily Mirror on that day:

That man Hitler dominated the main headline, as he had refused all talks with the Poles. And to prove that it was obvious to all that war would be declared the following week, child evacuation plans were well under way. Teachers had been recalled from their summer holidays in order to rehearse the evacuation process, while 250,000 parents were given advice.  London Fire Brigade officers had also been told to cut short holidays and return to duty. There must have been a sense of impending doom hanging over London at that point – I wonder if people found ‘Ask a Policeman’ helpful in temporarily forgetting their worries, or if personal anxieties over-rode the wonderful sense of comedy in this film and it only began to be properly appreciated later on.

In lighter news, nine wedding guests got stuck in a lift in Stepney and the bride was completely unaware at the time. Meanwhile, there is the heart-warming story of two sisters who shared children. One sister had given birth to two children, while the other one’s union had not been blessed with the bawling of tiny lungs. The children therefore spent alternate weeks at each house, swapping over every Saturday. Without knowing the children, it is difficult to pinpoint which sister was kindly and generous – the one who gave her pride and joy away every other week, or the one who gave her sister a well needed break…Depends on whether they were the kind of kids who got sent to St Michaels' doesn’t it?

Click here to read more wartime stories in my latest download, 'Message in a Bobbin'

Click here to have a look at my new blog on the village halls of middle England