~M~, I was never in the army (though I have been associated with a rugby club in my mis-spent youth), and I take your point. But in the days before radio & gramophones, reciting was very popular amongst us lower orders. G R Sims is remembered today (if at all) for In the workhouse, Christmas Day, but he wrote absolute reams of other stuff, some of it rather humorous; he spoke of an occasion when a coster's lad, or some similar oik, asked his permission to do one of his works in his presence. From all appearances, it was a popular form of entertainment. Think of those clever chaps who can recite that business about the comical zoo, or all the verses to Eskimo Nell.