Fighting a war on all fronts, home and abroad, was a tricky business. The wartime coalition government struggled to mobilise the Home Front, to get crucial messages across to the populace and to keep morale high. Comedy was to prove a vital weapon in engaging all ages and social classes during World War II, and the comedy double-act of Gert and Daisy figured large in this battle. On the radio, on the cinema screen and touring the far east, they were household names during the war years, their humour crossing boundaries and engaging the masses.
Gert and Daisy were the creations of real-life sisters, Doris (1899-1978) and Elsie Waters (1893-1990), who in subsequent decades were increasingly remembered as being the siblings of Jack Warner (Dixon of Dock Green himself), yet they were very much the bigger stars during the war. Doris and Elsie had cultivated a successful career for over a decade before the war, having been hot-housed from an early age in the family band, the E.W. Waters Bijou Orchestra. A flavour of their humour is evident in their signature tune:
‘Good evening everybody,
Here we are again,
We’re Mrs Waters’ daughters
And we’ve come to entertain.
You can always switch us off
When we appear before the ‘mike’,
But now we’re in the open,
You can shoot us when you like.’
Elsie and Doris performed as a musical double act in seaside variety shows, and their talent and appeal was recognised as they became recording artistes with regular appearances on the BBC, and featuring in the 1933 film Radio Parade. They were best known for their double act as the Cockney sisters Gert and Daisy, devised in 1930, having hastily cobbled together a sketch overnight to fill one side of a record when they realised they had run out of material. The act consisted of the two sisters gossiping about their lives, interspersing observations of everyday life with a wry humour. They wrote their own material, populating their world with a range of distinctive characters: their arch-enemy Old Ma Butler, Gert’s useless fiancée Bert and Daisy’s feckless husband Wally.
Gert and Daisy became immensely popular in the 1930s with extensive tours of music halls. They gained celebrity status, being invited to ‘kick off’ a charity football match, being featured on cigarette cards and starring in two Royal Variety Performances. They were inspired casting by Lord Woolton when faced with the task of reforming the nation’s food habits during wartime. Gert and Daisy were tasked with promoting vegetables, alternatives to meat and tips on saving fuel in their series ‘Feed The Brute’, their success resulting in a regular slot in the BBC’s radio programme Kitchen Front. Their gossipy and humorous approach was a breath of fresh air within a BBC which struggled to reach a working-class audience, announcing themselves as: "the housewives on the Kitchen Front, and we’ve got a lovely uniform…a cap and apron!" They were unlikely precursors to Nigella and Delia, compiling their recipes in Gert and Daisy’s Cookery Book.
The down-to-earth humour of Elsie and Doris was to make them indispensable to wartime broadcasting, including regular appearances in Workers’ Playtime and Forces radio, such as the 'Ack Ack Beer Beer'. Here you can hear them in their second appearance in Workers’ Playtime in 1942:
Not only were they employed as the public face of the Ministry of Food, but also on campaigns such as promotion of war bonds. With ENSA they toured India and the Far East, their efforts ultimately been recognised in 1946 when they were awarded the OBE.
They made three films as Gert and Daisy in the course of the war. 'Gert and Daisy’s Weekend' (1941)sees the sisters attempts to complain about a piece of fish resulting in them accompanying a group of East End evacuee urchins to Little Pipham Hall, only to be falsely accused of stealing Lady Plumtree’s jewels. In the course of their journey they entertain Londoners taking shelter from the Blitz in the underground, and blackmail Ma Butler into letting her daughter marry her forces sweetheart. Here we see Gert and Daisy cheering up people sheltering from the Blitz:
Their two subsequent films, 'Gert and Daisy Clean Up' (1942)and 'It’s in the Bag' (1943) also deal with topical wartime issues the former featuring our feisty heroines "foiling a villainous Black Market deal in pineapples".
In the wake of the war Elsie and Doris continued their careers on the radio and as a variety act, yet failing to make a successful transition to television. Their radio shows included 'Gert and Daisy’s Working Party' (1948) and 'Floggit’s' (1956) in which Gert and Daisy inherit a village general store and have to deal sternly with various characters played by Ronnie Barker, Joan Sims, Anthony Newley, Hugh Paddick, Ron Moody and Kenneth Connor. They continued to work until the 1970s and were reputedly thrilled when a couple of elephants in London Zoo were named Gert and Daisy in homage to their most famous act.
Elsie and Doris Waters were much more than merely sisters to Jack Warner. They were trailblazers for British female comedians, in being one of the first successful female double acts, with a career which endured over several decades, which extended across media forms and which was embedded in popular culture of the first half of the twentieth century. What is more they prided themselves on their control of their careers, writing their own material, music and taking charge of their own production company.
Claire Mortimer is a PhD candidate at University of East Anglia, researching various funny women in British film in the period 1939-1965.
