Shovel a 1918 song from RFC Canada

[John Gilinsky]

In 1918 when RFC Canada ordered the construction of many concrete swimming pools at most of their main training facilities in Canada the cadets were ordered to dig out the holes for these pools. Someone (who?) ocmposed the following ditty sung to the tune of "Mother" a then well-known song.

"S is for the soup they often feed us,

H is for the hash that we all know,

O is for the 'orsemeat they put in it, and

V's the voice of sergeants, sweet and low,

E is for the end of our enlistment,

L is for the last day of the war,

Put them all together and they spell Sho-v-vel,

The emblem of the Royal Flying Corps."

Another humourous song sung to the then popular tune of "Smiles" -

"There are stunts that make you happy,

There are stunts that make you blue,

There are stunts that steal away your breakfast,

As the waves of the ocean sometimes do,

There are stunts pulled off for exhibition,

For the eyes of all around to see,

But the stunts that keep the Hun from off my tail,

Are the stunts that appeal to me-e-e-e."

John

Toronto