In Which We Serve

Strongly under the influence of Lord Mountbatten, whose own ship HMS Kelly had been sunk, Noël Coward persuaded himself that he should play the captain of the gallant but doomed British warship as much like Lord Louis as possible.

Hence the request from the soundman recording the famous line about 'an efficient ship', and, fearing the quality was off, to have 'Mr Coward say over again that bit about "fish and chips".

It's a bizarre wartime morale booster - in line with recording British disasters, rather than victories, and featuring a sort of floating cross-section of Britain's then paralysed class society: upper deck, Coward and his lady (Celia Johnson) who were at one time to have had titles and driven a Rolls-Royce; middle deck, John Mills, Bernard Miles; and lower deck, the (pardonably) cowardly working lad Dickie Attenborough.

'No War This Year' says the banner headline in the Daily Express floating where the ship has been torpedoed. Coward's (and Mountbatten's) revenge on Lord Beaverbrook's rag.

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