Local Defence Volunteers
In the opening episode of 'Dad's Army', Britain's Home Guard (or rather, as it was called originally, the Local Defence Volunteers - or LDV) was born in broad daylight, on Tuesday 14 May 1940, inside the office of George Mainwaring, the pompous but fiercely patriotic manager of the Walmington-on-Sea branch of Swallow Bank.
He turned on his wireless just in time to catch the end of the broadcast by Anthony Eden, the secretary of state for war, addressed to 'men of all ages who wish to do something for the defence of their country':
'Here, then, is the opportunity for which so many of you have been waiting. Your loyal help, added to the arrangements which already exist, will make and keep our country safe.'
Off went the wireless and on went Mainwaring, 'Right!' he barked at Wilson, his worried-looking assistant, 'Let's go to it!'
Your loyal help, added to the arrangements which already exist, will make and keep our country safe.
The historical reality, back in the summer of 1940, had not, in fact, been very different from the fiction. The date - 14 May - had been the same, although it was not until shortly after nine o'clock in the evening that Eden spoke to the nation via the BBC's Home Service.
Neither he nor his government had previously shown any enthusiasm for a policy which involved ordinary citizens, fearing imminent invasion, being allowed to take matters into their own hands instead of relying on the orthodox forces of security and public order (namely, the Army and the Police). However, when reports began reaching the War Office concerning the appearance up and down the country of 'bands of civilians...arming themselves with shotguns', it had been clear that the time for a rethink had arrived.
Without much agreement as to whether the aim was to sustain or suppress this burgeoning grass-roots activism, Eden and his advisors proceeded to improvise some plans and, as one observer put it, evoked 'a new army out of nothingness.'
A new order
Corporal Jones, from 'Dad's Army' © Form lagged behind content. The Local Defence Volunteers was launched without any staff, or funds, or premises of its own. Eden had simply instructed his listeners 'to give in your name at your local police station and then, as and when we want you, we will let you know.'
In the opening episode of 'Dad's Army', Mainwaring, after appointing himself commanding officer ('Times of peril always bring great men to the fore'), marches off with Wilson and young Pike to the local church hall, where the eager volunteers - including Frazer, Godfrey, Walker and Jones - are invited to sign their names on paying-in slips and become part of what Mainwaring is confident will become 'an aggressive fighting unit.'
The Local Defence Volunteers was launched without any staff, or funds, or premises of its own.
The wartime reality, again, was similarly shambolic. Before Eden's broadcast had ended, police stations in all regions of the nation found themselves deluged with eager volunteers. By the end of the first 24 hours, 250,000 men - equal in number to the peacetime Regular Army - had registered their names.
Although the age range was meant to run from 17 to 65, it was not strictly enforced at the beginning, and more than a few old soldiers contrived to creep back in (such as Alexander Taylor, a sprightly octogenarian who had first seen action in the Sudan during 1884-5).
Membership continued to grow at a remarkably rapid rate: by the end of May the total number of volunteers had risen to between 300,000 and 400,000, and by the end of the following month it exceeded 1,400,000 - around 1,200,000 more than any of the Whitehall mandarins had anticipated. Order did not need to be restored: it had yet to be created.
