London – It is said to be beneficial while you work, and has even been known to help whenever you feel afraid.
But the art of whistling is running out of puff, it seems.
The increasing prevalence of portable music on mobile phones is killing it off, it has been claimed.
A YouGov poll found that 70 per cent of us believe people whistle less now than they did 20 or 30 years ago.
A third blamed the rise of iPods and other portable music players for silencing the cheery whistlers. Chris Cook, a cultural historian at Syracuse University in London, said: ‘It’s nothing like it was a few decades ago, when you would hear people whistling tunes everywhere.
‘The tunes are in people’s phones, so they don’t need them in their heads.’
John Lucas, who has written a book on the subject, told the Sunday Times that the workers who would regularly whistle – delivery boys, coalmen, chimney sweeps – are just ‘not there any more’.
Daily Mail