An interesting and informative program.

I did not know if all the men characterised survived, so it was very much seeing the story unfold and actually had a sense of relief when the armistice was announced. They must have become a very close knit bunch.

It aslo reminded me I have a book on the Wipers times which has extracts from various issues - must dig it out and read through it

Suffering from Cheerfulness - The Best Bits from the Wipers Times collated by Malcom Brown with a forward by Ian Hislop.

Ian A and Chris Baker raise some interesting points:

IanA

"The paper's subversive humour proves popular with soldiers on the front line but goes down less well with their superior officers." Really?

Chris Baker

Must say I have often wondered about that. "Wipers Times" is funny but it seems to me to have been a rather public school / grammar school / cliquey type of humour. Is there any evidence that the ordinary Tommy actually got to see it? What did he think of it?

Whilst one wonders who the actual readership was, it hopefully provided as you say the "typically British humour in adversity without trivialising what was going on".