A little bit of discipline...

There is a generation of men now going into their old age who will have, somewhere in their possessions, a photograph or maybe several, showing him in uniform. He may sometimes be found in the bars of the local British Legion Club where, in extremis, he will be wearing a regimental tie or sporting a badge. And around about the beginning of November he will start getting quite agitated about the dwindling number of people "wearing their Poppy with Pride". 

It's not that he fought in a War, although quite a number in the Fifties saw service in Malaya or Suez. It's simply that he did National Service, giving up two or more years of his life - maybe putting off University - to leave home and spend time compulsorily imprisoned in a barracks or a warship before returning to civvy street and picking up where he'd left off.

Most of these gallants would have raised no objection whatsoever. Their fathers, uncles, cousins, even, had all gone through a War and primed the up coming male generation with stories about life in Barracks, about RSMs and NCOs. 

But as life continued to return to normal there was less of a need to burden the National budget with the cost of his enormous stand-by Army, Air Force and Navy. It was decided that National Service would end and in 1958 the last lads from our street to have to take up the sword picked up their kit-bags and headed off. 

After that, service in the Armed Forces became a choice, a career, even. One with good prospects and pay....even finding young couples a home albeit on vast estates of Married Quarters.  

But away from the Armed Forces, society began to notice a change. In the decadent 1960s which were to follow, young men "enlisted" for their own kind of "conscription".  They became attached to groups or gangs even, such as Mods or Rockers. They equipped themselves with "uniforms" of style so that they could be easily identified.   And they made life pretty unpleasant for the rest of us.

So it wasn't long before people pointed to the rising incidence of public disorder, whether it be football matches or seaside proms that became the focus, and said the inevitable: "They shouldn't have done away with National Service". 

Comparisons were made with other European countries which hadn't been so quick to disband their conscription requirement. But there was to be no going back. The Alpha Male had energy and hormones to dispose of. The knives were out, quite literally, and it was to be three decades later before rampaging gangs were no longer a constant threat to the streets of England. 

It is debatable, of course, whether the ending of national service was in itself a point at which England went wrong. But it is interesting to speculate how different life would have been if it had not been abolished. Or if it had been extended to young women. One thing seems to be evident. That in the same way that old men are now heard saying "a good smack didn't do me any harm" those who went and served their country playing The Army Game are united in saying "It made a man of me". 

In my next edition I will be looking to men in a different kind of uniform and the way they played a part in What Went Wrong With England.