Lighter: That line about "their blinkin' sons" has always struck me as odd. Why should "corporals" be associated with "their...sons"? If Guest Brian Hermann is correct, that it was a topical reference, those lines at least could not go back to World War I.

Rumncoke: The corporals and their sons - being older than the private soldiers, corporals were more likely to have married and have a young family.

Photos of the sprogs would be sent in letters, and proudly shown off to a totally disinterested but captive audience.

I think the reference to corporals' sons is far more likely to be due to the common junior NCO habit of telling their charges "my X year old son could do it better than that". This appears to be independent of any topical reference. My grandad certainly mentions it in his 1917 war diaries, John Winton mentions it in "We Joined The Navy" (1950s) and one of my current British Military Fitness instructors, a serving Marine PTI, constantly exhorts us to greater efforts by comparing our peformance unfavourably with that of his 4 year old!