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The Real Dad's Army: The Story of The Home Guard
Author was himself a Private in the Home Guard.
Includes the 'voices' of members of the Home Guard.
The enduring popularity of the BBC TV series Dad's Army has focused attention on one of the strangest and least military armies ever formed - The British Home Guard. What started as an improvised band of volunteers, had grown by 1942 into a conscripted, disciplined and well-equipped force with a strength of nearly two million men.
Norman Longmate, an ex-member of the Home Guard and an authority on wartime Britain, has collected together a wealth of hilarious anecdotes as well as all the unlikely facts to produce the first popular history of the Home Guard to be written since the war.
Includes the 'voices' of members of the Home Guard.
The enduring popularity of the BBC TV series Dad's Army has focused attention on one of the strangest and least military armies ever formed - The British Home Guard. What started as an improvised band of volunteers, had grown by 1942 into a conscripted, disciplined and well-equipped force with a strength of nearly two million men.
Norman Longmate, an ex-member of the Home Guard and an authority on wartime Britain, has collected together a wealth of hilarious anecdotes as well as all the unlikely facts to produce the first popular history of the Home Guard to be written since the war.
128 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1974
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 8, 2021
I'm a big fan of autobiographies of doctors, vets, police officers etc. about "how things were in the past", the what's and why's, preferably with a lot of funny anecdotes to illustrate how the author lived through them.
And most of all I love the ones where the storyis written the same way as the author would talk about it, so it could be just as well as if the author is sitting in front of me telling his life story.
In this book, the context is there, the anecdotes are there, but it's a collection of stories told by other people and rewritten in a style that made me think of a periodical.
Which is not necessarily a bad thing, it's just not my cup of tea.
And most of all I love the ones where the storyis written the same way as the author would talk about it, so it could be just as well as if the author is sitting in front of me telling his life story.
In this book, the context is there, the anecdotes are there, but it's a collection of stories told by other people and rewritten in a style that made me think of a periodical.
Which is not necessarily a bad thing, it's just not my cup of tea.
June 2, 2019
A fairly under-reported, and generally under-valued, component of Britain's wartime experience is covered in Longhurst's work. It is written in an accessible, unembellished manner and seems to inform not glorify. Well worth the quick read. Good selection of accompanying photographs.
November 2, 2018
A short, light and often amusing history of the Home Guard, which, slimness and lightness of touch notwithstanding, covers the key facts. Very well illustrated.
March 15, 2017
Packed with evocative illustrations, this captures the reality of would-be Captain Mainwarings and Corporal Joneses and proves that the eternally popular (I still both watch it and listen to the radio version every week) 'Dad's Army' wasn't that far removed from the truth. Fascinating.
July 23, 2011
Fascinating insight into the make up of the Home Guard and the feeling of its members throughout WW2
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews