National Service: Conscription In Britain 1945-1963

by Richard Vinen

Winner of the Templer Medal and the Wolfson History Prize Sunday Times Top 10 Bestseller Richard Vinen's National Service is a serious - if often very entertaining - attempt to get to grips with the reality of that extraordinary institution, which now seems as remote as the British Empire itself. With great sympathy and curiosity, Vinen unpicks the myths of the two 'gap years', which all British men who came of age between 1945 and the early 1960s had to fill with National Service. This book is fascinating to those who endured or even enjoyed their time in uniform, but also to anyone wishing to understand the unique nature of post-war Britain.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Military History, Military Fiction

640 pages, Paperback

First published May 14, 2014

About the author

Richard Vinen is a Professor in Modern European History at King's College, London. Prior to joining the department in 1991, he was a Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge and also lectured at Queen Mary (Westfield) College.

Richard Vinen is the author of the widely praised "A History in Fragments: Europe in the Twentieth Century". He writes regularly for The Independent, The Times Literary Supplement, the Boston Globe and the Nation.

Reviews

[Alex Sarll]

As with various other ordeals they themselves evaded, there's a certain strain of gammon keen on reintroducing national service to sort out the younger generation. Hilarious, then, that the figures suggest in practice it led to more rather than less juvenile delinquency, and maybe even more homosexuality to boot. But that upending of conventional 'wisdom' is just one small strand of Vinen's capacious yet granular account, which combines broad sweeps with revealing anomalies and amusing anecdotes to cover everything from class to Korea to the co-option of Anglicanism in the cause of promoting sexual continence (which in the event seems to have done more to undermine faith than it did to prevent VD). Certain men recur from chapter to chapter, among them the famous, who sometimes made much of their experiences: David Lodge's admitted tendency to fictionalise his time in the forces is treated forensically but sympathetically; Alan Clark's less open creativity with the truth earns a noticeably frostier tone. A fascinating read, even if one has no particular interest in the brief and atypical phenomenon of British peacetime conscription; a springboard for all manner of further questions if one does.

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

A highly factual account of national service in Britain based on solid research. Despite this, it makes space for the voices of those who lived through NS and still feel its effects.

[Trevor Harvey · Rating 4 out of 5]

National Service in the UK is a largely forgotten part of social history, but as Vinen points out in this excellent book, it was a major part of life for many young men in the 1950s.

National Service was a discriminatory concept. Class distinctions were adhered to, especially in the Army. Northern Irish men were exempt and the attitude to serving of those men living in Wales and Scotland was lukewarm.

The most valuable part of the book is an analysis of the British role in Korea, Cyprus and Malaya in which national service men were involved. Again, this is a forgotten part of recent British history and this section of the book is a valuable record.

Much of the source material is derived from officers and those conscripts who were articulate and wrote memoirs, so we get less information about the working class serviceman's point of view.

Thoroughly researched and detailed.

[Malcolm Davis · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was greatly disappointed by this book.I was expecting to read the recollections of men who had been National Servicemen.Instead what I got was virtually an academic treatise.One quarter of men did this and c%did that.
There are only 3 interesting chapters out of 16.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Comprehensive.

[Jake Goretzki · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very readable, thorough survey of a phenomenon I only really knew from Dennis Potter's 'Lipstick on Your Collar' and the memories of my mate's stepdad (who deferred and never had to do it, but was expecting to). National Service is both forgotten and misremembered - and this is an excellent correction of the record.

Respectful, but captures the buffoonery and comedy of the whole experience very well - and in much of the tone of bluster and dissent you can so often hear the voice of Private Eye (that'll be Ingrams) and Monty Python. As ever, there's often nothing funnier than wit under fire (or in an office miles from it). Some glorious British understatement and one liners here.

And the horror, too. I had never heard of Batang Kali ('the British My Lai'). And the extent of suicides (Douglas Hurd's brother - I had no idea). For some, two years of time wasting; for others a rerun of the Somme in Korea.

Oh, and a good starter on understanding the British Army - if only from the 'regulars' versus 'conscripts' point of view. I still don't get what the hell they're on about and need to get a primer (those names! 'Green Jackets'; 'Black Watch', 'The Glosters'. And those job titles. It makes cricket seem really easy to follow).

Excellent and timely (National Service ever being raised as an answer to a social problem. It's not).

[Alan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great study of National Service. Not only does it give you the information it explains how to use it. The chapter on literature for example helps to understand the motives behind autobiographies and gives analytical guidance on further reading. The thickness of the book is daunting but many of the pages are citation notes. It's not as difficult a read as might be expected. Recommended starting point on this subject.

[Steve TK · Rating 5 out of 5]

My father died recently and he was born in 1935. Over the years, he often referred to his national service in Malaya and I decided to find out more. This is the definitive one volume history of that period. I learned a huge amount about the context of national service and the experiences of the men from this book and the men's voices contained within it.