Wipers Times The Wipers Times was a trench magazine that was published by soldiers fighting on the front lines of the First World War . It was produced by British soldiers from the 12th Battalion Sherwood Foresters ( Nottingham & Derbyshire Regiment ) , 24th Division British Armies in France . In early 1916 , the 12th Battalion was stationed in the front line at Ypres , Belgium and came across a printing press abandoned by a Belgian who had , in the words of the editor , " stood not on the order of his going , but gone . " A sergeant who had been a printer in peacetime salvaged it and printed a sample page . The paper itself was named after Tommy slang for Ypres itself . The names of the staff involved in the paper are mostly unrecorded . The editor was Captain ( later Lieutenant - Colonel ) F . J . Roberts , the sub - editor was Lieutenant F . H . Pearson . A notable contributor to the paper was Artilleryman Gilbert Frankau . Also worthy of note are the engravings by E . J . Couzens : his portrait of a chinless platoon commander clutching his cane and wondering " Am I as offensive as I might be ? " became the paper ' s motif . Most other contributors from the Division used pseudonyms : some now obscure ; some intended to satirize contemporary newspaper pundits such as William Beach Thomas ( of the " Daily Mail " ) and Hilaire Belloc ; and some ironic , such as P . B . I . ( Poor Bloody Infantry ) . The paper consisted of poems , reflections , wry in - jokes and lampoons of the military situation the Division was in . In general the paper maintained a humorously ironic style that today can be recognised in satirical magazines such as " Private Eye " , " Le Canard enchaîné " and " The Onion " . In 2013 the BBC broadcast a dramatisation , written by Ian Hislop and Nick Newman . Captain Fred Roberts was played by Ben Chaplin and Lt Jack Pearson by Julian Rhind - Tutt with Michael Palin and Emilia Fox in supporting roles . Adverts . The covers of each issue were mock adverts , richly typeset , for war - related music - hall extravaganzas . A few samples ( not richly typeset ) are given below : There were also sales of no - man ' s land : or the front - line at Ypres salient itself : Contents . The daily concerns of trench soldiers all make an appearance in the articles , sometimes explicit and sometimes as in - jokes for which outsiders would not have the key . Shelling ( whether from the enemy or one ' s own side ) : is referred to all through the magazine . There are occasional small ads purportedly from Minnie ( German trench mortar ) to Flying Pig ( British ditto ) and various poems complaining about , or apologising for , incidents where British guns shelled their own lines . Sex : the collections of pornography known to the Division as " The Munque Art Gallery " and " Kirschner ' s " are frequently mentioned and occasionally advertised , as are the local brothels : the Fancies , the Poplar tree and Plug Street . Drink : the continued supply of rum and whiskey was a prime concern for all at the front . In one serial story , " Narpoo Rum , " a certain ' Herlock Shomes ' spent five issues tracking rum - thieves round Hooge . Brief references also turn up to panic buying of supplies by unnamed individuals in the Division after rumours of a whisky drought . Rats : these bred in enormous numbers in the trenches , chiefly fed on corpses but with an eye for anything left in a dugout . One poem in the paper describes how a rat and his wife opened a tin of sardines , ate the contents then sealed the tin back up for the author to find . The reality of life in the trenches rarely breaks through what the editor termed the paper ' s ' hysterical hilarity ' but when it does , the gallows humour is clear and may appear callous to modern eyes . One example is a quote from an article in a British national newspaper about a bungled trench - raid , followed by a sharp comment from the editor of the Wipers Times : Another such , from the column " Verbatim Extracts from Intelligence Summaries " reads as follows : Even the weather forecast wasn ' t immune to it : Poetry . Much of the copy submitted by soldiers of the Division was poetry . Some was good , some was doggerel and occasional pieces were excellent : but not all was welcome . The fourth issue contained this notice from the editor : Nonetheless , much of the space in the paper was taken up by poems . Two typical examples are given below . Miscellania . The paper is sprinkled with small paragraphs and half - column articles such as " People We Take Our Hats Off To " ( frequently the French ) , " Things We Want to Know " , " Answers to Correspondents " and small ads . Some were obviously spoofs : While others were not for outsiders : Publication history . The paper was produced at irregular intervals between early February 1916 and February 1918 . The title changed each time the division was moved to another part of the Line : the old titles were carefully incorporated into it , and by the last wartime issue its full title was : Publication was held up after February 1918 by the German offensive on the western front in that year , but at the end of the War two issues of " The Better Times " were published . The second of these was billed as the " Xmas , Peace and Final Number . " Published editions . A book containing facsimiles of the first fifteen issues was published in early 1918 . In 1930 the entire series was published in one volume . This was reprinted ( with introduction and notes ) in 1973 and again in 1988 . A further edition was produced in 2006 .