"ATTEN - (Wait for it! Wait for it!) - SHUN!"

Upon which bellowed imperative - often with expletives inserted between each stentorian syllable - generations of British Army boots have crunched in disciplined unison on barrack squares the world over.

But not any more. The bawling drill instructor, who put steel into the recruits' backbone and made soldiers out of boys, has been given his marching orders.

Instead of the choleric Sergeant-Major "Shut Up!," the archetypal screaming NCO epitomised by Windsor Davies in It Ain't 'alf Hot, Mum, the modern Army is calling up the Sergeant Wilson, of Dad's Army fame.

Much more polite, you know..."Would you mind awfully, falling in, please, chaps, when you're ready."

For, it seems, today's teenage recruits have to be treated with much greater care than their granddads were. Otherwise, the Army says, they "break."

Goodness knows how the country will sleep safe o' nights now - when the modern-day defenders of its shores, expected to repel enemy bullets, cannot even cope with harsh words.

Next, they'll be issuing them with teddy bears.

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