TOMMY’S TEETH.

Vanity Fair (UK), March 16, 1905
 

(The War Office has issued an order that men with defective teeth must either have them seen to, or be discharged “as not likely to become efficient soldiers.”)

OH, we take him, and the doctors test his eyes,
 His lungs must both be healthy, we insist:
All kinds of little trials we devise
 To prove our Tommy’s fitness to enlist.
He must have a pair of shoulders of his own,
 His skin must swell with muscles underneath:
  He must simply burst with fitness
  And Madrali-Hackenschmidtness;
 And we’re going to pay attention to his teeth.

  Oh Tommy, Tommy Atkins,
   It’s a dentist that you need,
  For at present you get toothache
   Every morning when you feed.
  Buy a pretty set of molars,
   Have them cunningly screwed in,
  And Tommy, Tommy Atkins,
   When you fight, you’re sure to win.

For there never was a man in any age
 Who could face the frenzied foe, for country’s sake,
While feeling, in the battle’s hottest rage,
 That just one tooth had started off to ache.
When Napoleon swept through Europe like a flame,
 His soldiers always fought as they were bid:
  It’s a million to a shilling
  That their teeth did not want filling,
 Or they couldn’t have achieved the deeds they did.

  Oh Tommy, Tommy Atkins,
   It’s a dentist that you need,
  For at present you get toothache
   Every morning when you feed.
  Buy a pretty set of molars,
   Have them cunningly screwed in,
  And Tommy, Tommy Atkins,
   When you fight, you’re sure to win.

So do not linger on with toothless gums:
 Oh, see your dentist ’ere it is too late.
Or when at last the day of battle comes,
 You will not be in proper fighting state.
But the regiments of the enemy will quail,
 The discomfort of the foe will be profound:
   When against them you are led on
   To the field of Armageddon,
 They will tremble if they see your teeth are sound.

  Oh, Tommy, Tommy Atkins,
   Be a man, and pay the bill:
  Your military training
   Should include the dentist’s drill.
  If you feel it necessary,
   Ask for gas ’ere you begin;
  Then, Tommy, Tommy Atkins,
   When you fight, you’re sure to win.

P. G. Wodehouse.

 


 

Notes:

 

SOLDIERS AND THEIR TEETH. The military authorities are experiencing much difficulty from the working of the rule made some time back by which men whose teeth were not perfect were allowed to enlist on the condition that they should pay for false teeth, or other dental service, by being put under stoppages. Many men after thus enlisting have refused to fulfil their engagement by having their teeth attended to, and the War Office has decided that the men cannot be forced to carry out their contract, and must be discharged as not likely to become efficient soldiers. Amongst other corps, the Brigade of Guards is suffering from this difficulty, and about a hundred men have already been discharged. (Nottingham Evening Post, March 9, 1905)

 

John Dawson    

 

One of Wodehouse’s several parody lyrics to the song “Private Tommy Atkins”; see the footnotes to an earlier lyric for links to sheet music and a recording of the original song.