the real dads army

[marksman]

anybody saw that programe last night on the real dads army ... great or what , especailly about them training at that big house in the country ,you learn something new every day ...

[Andy T]

that roller skate footage was excellent! I knew about the rollerskaters -they operated in London -but had no idea they'd been filmed! It was actually a good idea as they got to speeds of over 20mph and could get places other methods couldn't and all they would have been used as was message carriers

[madjon]

a couple of excellent books have been published in the past few years on the home guard, there are a few i was looking through in blackwells books, the spanish veterans ran some of the home guard training courses early on , as they were imparting some stuff they learned fighting in spain.
theres been more material published in the past few years and im sure a few thousand feet of film has become available as well, all rather interesting, still like the classic homeguard exercise pictures of paeatroopers disguised as nuns or nannies pushing prams, you think they would get rid of the big swastikas if they were in disguise though. an interesting area, always find something in local reference libraries on local HG units.

[m300572]

A lot of the view of the Home Guard has been coloured by 'Dad's Army' - but if you 'read between the lines' even with this source, a lot of the older men had experience from earlier wars (particularly WW1) and would have known which end was which had it come to actually doing any fighting.

[Andy T]

You know although the C4 prog seemed to have it in a little for Dads Army Jimmy Croft had been in the HG AND whats more most of the actors had seen active service in WW2 and there was a sense of great pride in the team over what their generation accomplished. You only have to see the scene in the movie where Mainwaring lays the few bullets down and tells Wilson to use the cartdidges should he die-now there you see the genuine regard they all had for the men of the Home Guard!

[Earl Mortimer]

I'm really enjoying this program.

It's really opening my eyes to how much went into the defence of GB.