Home Guard (Local Defence Volunteers)

Back in the 1930's. On the back of our front door there were 5 hooks with our coats and scarves on, then it was five coats and five gas-masks, then dad joined the Home Guard and we also had two soldiers billeted on us so it was now three army coats, our school coats and seven gas-masks, then the soldiers moved on and later one weekend we were all at home so now there was dad's army coat, my sister's army coat, my brother's navy coat, and my air force cadet coat, my uncle came in through the back door, looked at the coats, said "Bl**dy hell Arthur, hope 'Jerry' knows where your back door is 'cause he ain't going to get through your front door".

Norman, as far as I am aware it was always the Local Defence Volunteers, Home Guard was the nickname.

The name was changed in 1940 from Local Defence Volunteers (thought to be uninspiring) to Home Guard

Midland Red, really, well I'll go to the foot of our stairs, as we used to say in Coventry, never knew it was official.

I haven't heard that for a long time Kaga 'a pinny'

Quite correct MR... proof see here

Norman, I'm not disputing it, we all ways called it the Home Guard, I thought in the background the MOD kept it the LDV But quite a number of the earlier sketches did actually happen, somewhere, sometime but were changed a little to make it fun. 'Jerry' doesn't like the steel (greatly exaggerated) came back from the 1st World War, not the 2nd, but there was a lot of humour out there in the early days. Soldiers talked of the 'pull-through' and ladies asked if someone had been ill, that kind of thing.

Here's some photos of the real "Dad's Army"!

Fantastic MR, I just have to watch the movie. All those well-known faces.

Oh here we go again, never did I see anyone look like or dress like Zeta-Jones in 1940, not even the Queen mum, immaculate eyebrows,etc. It did not really happen, she would have caused a riot. I am only going on that one picture, not the film. Even Pat Roc did not look like that, Pat was the airforce pin-up. Back in those days the people not eligible for call up felt lost, they needed to be part of the war, so yes they flocked to play their part, and there were accidents. Being a hotch-potch of people, you had the normal people who tripped over their own bootlaces, but it did booster the morale just to have them around. Part of a barrage balloon floated to the ground, a phone call and a full scale turn-out was on. Woman said to butcher, if that's my meat ration for the week, then you may as well as post it through my letter box.

Bear in mind this is a comedy not a documentary!

TonyS, I hate to see people completely out of the picture, and give false ideas, that are not comic, doesn't she look as though she has just spent the last week in the shelter, and wondering how to give the kids their rations. I guess I'm still living in the past.

The other thing that comes to mind with me, the comedy was a seaside place, but in Coventry guys would work all day, squash in a couple of hours home guard duty and then go back to the factory and do fire duty, not every night, but enough to make it a very tiring life, so all though comic, let us not forget who they really were.

Well said Kaga. I entirely agree with your sentiments. We get fed a completely sanitised edition of history.

I think you both miss the point, this is not a newsreel on Pathe News or a "history lesson", it's a bit of fun. My father, who was a corporal in Coventry's Home Guard (due to his occupation he wasn't called up), loved this show and looked forward to watching the original every week.