From Instructions to American Servicemen in Britain, 1942:
The British are tough. Don't be misled by the British tendency to be soft-spoken and polite.___ They are not given to back-slapping and they are shy about showing their affections. But once they get to like you they make the best friends in the world.
___ The Briton...is... the most lawabiding citizen in the world, because the British system of justice is just about the best there is. There are fewer murders, robberies, and burglaries in the whole of Great Britain in a year than in a single large American city.
___ You will find that English crowds at football or cricket matches are more orderly and polite to the players than American crowds. If a fielder misses a catch at cricket, the crowd will probably take a sympathetic attitude. They will shout 'good try' even if it looks to you like a bad fumble. In America the crowd would probably shout 'take him out'.
___ They are good sportsmen and are quick to recognise good sportsmanship wherever they meet it.
___ It isn't a good idea to say 'bloody' in mixed company in Britain - it is one of their worst swear words.
___ The British dislike bragging and showing off.
___ In peace or war, 'God Save The King' (to the same tune as our 'America') is played at the conclusion of all public gatherings such as theater performances. The British consider it bad form not to stand at attention, even if it means missing the last bus. If you are in a hurry, leave before the national anthem is played. That's considered alright.
___ On the whole, British people... are open and honest. If you are on furlough and puzzled about directions, money, or customs, most people will be anxious to help you as long as you speak first and without bluster. The best authority on all problems is the nearest 'bobby' (policeman) in his steel helmet. British police are proud of being able to answer almost any question under the sun. They're not in a hurry and they'll take plenty of time to talk to you.
I quote these excerpts because they add to the evidence in The Welfare State We're In that the British used to be regarded as particularly civilised people (something which is no longer the case).
The system of justice in Britain may, indeed, have contributed to the low crime rate in the early 1940s. So, too, the policing. But I believe that far more important than either was the fact that British people felt natural pressure in their everyday lives to be decent people. Hard work and a good reputation helped people to get jobs and spouses, for example. This was only beginning to be undermined by the welfare state in 1942.
Methods of policing have certainly deteriorated since 1945. It is rare indeed to see a 'bobby' on his own these days. Presumably the justification for this is that they are less likely to be attacked if there are two of them, and more able to defend themselves. But I suspect the 'producer interest' here. The police simply find it more pleasant to walk around with someone to chat to, regardless of the public interest. Even in the leafiest, richest, safest parts of Kensington, where the chances of an attack must be remote, I have seen them in pairs.
There are two major drawbacks to this kind of policing. First, only half the streets are covered that might have been covered. Second, the officers tend to talk to each other and not the public. A couple of police officers together is far less approachable than one by him or herself.
Instructions to American Servicemen in Britain, 1942 was re-published by the Bodliean Library in 1994. It can be bought by clicking on any of the links to Amazon and searching for the title.
Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in Behaviour & Crime
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I'd be wary of reading too much into this, as these types of guides are notoriously inaccurate (think of British guides to foreign countries)
For instance, I doubt this:
"The British consider it bad form not to stand at attention [to the National Anthem], even if it means missing the last bus"
was ever really the norm
Posted by: Matthew at March 21, 2005 08:52 PM
I understand that it now seems hard to believe that people used to stand up for the national anthem at the end of theatrical peformances, but it is true. I was not alive in 1942 but even I remember, as a child in 1950s, being at a cinema in Hampstead, London where the national anthem was played and everyone stood. Perhaps it was some particularly patriotic film, like one about the Battle of Britain. But it happened.
I know at least two men who served in the war who always stood rigidly to attention on such occasions. They would even do so when the national anthem was played on television at the end of a day's broadcasts.
Yes. Britain was different place.
Posted by: James Bartholomew at March 31, 2005 08:00 PM
"Yes. Britain was different place."
... therefore all benefits and pensions should be eliminated and the entire welfare state dismantled?
This site is nothing but the ranting of a few right-wing cranks.
If that happened - if the welfare state was abolished- then crime, homelessness, and general mortality would skyrocket. The marginalised poor who rely on benefits would face eviction from their crappy housing and suddenly realise that they had nothing left to lose. The police did a wargame in the '80s on this, and they concluded that within a couple of weeks riots would break out; I'd add to that, that probably mass squatting and shoplifting would become a fact of life- so your property would instantly be threataned.
The country needs welfare, just like it needs police and firemen, as a safety net and to keep major civil disruptions from breaking out, especially in times of recession.
You guys like looking at history? Check out the 1930's, then. Precious little politeness then, when a general strike broke out and politicians had to send tanks into mining communities. People starved in the '30s, they lived like dogs and died like flies of preventable diseases, so much so that after rationing was introduced in WWII, the standard of living for many people actually went up!
Do you eally want to bring back the "good old days" of civil strife, TB, political extremism, and class warfare?
Fortunately crazed Tory half-wits like the ones who run these think tanks are already down the dustbin of history. If anyone is fooled by their rhetoric I suggest they take a trip to the inner cities of the USA, where many of these daft ideas have actually been tried out, resulting in infant mortality rates and poverty surpassing that in many African countries.
Pah!
Posted by: badnewswade at April 18, 2005 01:28 AM
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That's got to be the worst example of working back to find the "evidence" you want to find I've ever seen.
Your case for dismantling the entire welfare state is that some American manual on the British Isles circa WWII says that the British are polite, and we're not polite now?!?
What a load of rubbish!
As for the rise of crime, there is far better evidence that television causes violence to increase:
http://www.whitedot.org/issue/iss_story.asp?slug=cuttingviolence1
Other culprits for violence include drugs, now wideley available and widely criminalised, as well as recent successful "free market" attempts to increase poverty and punish the unemployed.
but that is another story.
Anyway, surely a welfare state reduces crime, because people do not need to rob each other for essentials. Of course, when new "essentials" (mainly drugs but also useless, crap trendy clothes, stupidity and heavy drinking) are created and mass marketed to the poor all the time, other interventions become neccesary: like locking up the drug dealers, regulating advertising, more money for schools, and stuff like that.
Essentially the "free-market fundamentalism" espoused by your site and by many politicians is a rich man's charter, an attempt to make an already rigged and undemocratic system even worse by excluding the economy from democratic control.
Hah!
PS. Your comments form can't handle line feeds. Fix it!
Posted by: badnewswade at March 21, 2005 01:48 PM