Following on from yesterday’s blog, here is the “REAL” Dad’s Army, and I have the DVD’s to prove it!!!

Dad’s Army

The beloved sitcom about the struggles of a Home Guard platoon during World War II who are fighting incompetence, age and pomposity more than the Nazis. These figures from Warlord Games are intended for my Very British Civil War project.

Captain Mainwaring

Mainwaring is the bank manager and Home Guard platoon commander, in the fictional seaside town of Walmington-on-Sea.

Lance-Corporal Jack Jones

Lance Corporal Jack Jones, is the local butcher, old war horse and third-in-command. His catchphrases are “Don’t panic!”, “Permission to speak, sir?” and “They don’t like it up ’em!”. Jones also often recounts his past military experiences particularly those in Sudan and India and gives a glimpse to the military traditions and events in the concluding years of the 19th century.

This force, first known as the Local Defence Volunteers, would soon become known as the Home Guard – but due to the vast number of elderly volunteers it also earned the nickname of “Dad’s Army”.

In Walmington-on-Sea, a town on the south coast of England, the Home Guard platoon is lead by Captain George Mainwaring, the pompous local branch manager of Swallow Bank.

Private Frank Pike

Pike was born in 1922, and is the youngest of the Walmington-on-Sea platoon. Aged 17 when the series begins, he is not old enough to join the army, although presumably he has reached, or is nearing, his 18th birthday when he is about to receive call-up papers it is revealed that he has a rare blood type that excludes him from military service.

Sergeant Arthur Wilson

Alongside Mainwaring are his public school educated second-in-command and the bank’s chief clerk Sergeant Arthur Wilson. Wilson was born in 1887, and is carefree, cheerful and well-spoken, although more complex than he first seems. He is chief clerk of the Walmington-on-Sea bank and captain of the cricket club. He has an upper-middle-class background; his great uncle was a peer of the realm, his father had a career in the City of London, and Wilson often recalls fond memories of his nanny.

Private Charles Godfrey

Famous for “Do you think I might be excused?” – Charles Godfrey.was a retired shop assistant (Civil Service Stores) from Walmington-on-Sea. He later became a private in, and the medical orderly of the Walmington-on-Sea Home Guard. He was sometimes referred to by his fellow platoon members as “Charlie“.

Private James Frazer

Frazer was born in 1872 and is a dour, trouble-stirring, exaggerating, wild-eyed Scottish undertaker (formerly the keeper of a philatelist’s shop with a hobby of making coffins). He hails from the “wild and lonely” Isle of Barra in the Outer Hebrides.

He is an old sailor and traveller who claims to have had many adventures in the south seas,, including pearl diving and a confrontation with a witch doctor.

Private Joe Walker

Joe Walker was a black market “Wholesales Supplier”. He was the second youngest member of the Walmington-on-Sea Home Guard. When his actor James Beck died suddenly in 1973, near the end of filming for the sixth series, the character was written out.

AFRP Warden William Hodges

William Hodges, nearly always referred to as “Hodges”, was a greengrocer of Walmington-on-Sea and later became Chief Air Raid (ARP) Warden.

Walmington-On-Sea Clergy

Reverend Timothy Farthing

The Rev. Timothy Farthing, usually referred to simply as The Vicar or His Reverence, is a fictional vicar portrayed by Frank Williams on the BBC television sitcom Dad’s Army.

Farthing is the petulant, ineffectual, but kind and well-meaning vicar of St Aldhelm’s Church, Walmington-on-Sea. Neither on the side of the Home Guard, nor the ARP Wardens, he attempts to care for “The spiritual needs of (his) parishioners”, despite the many setbacks presented during the war, such as having to share his church hall and office with both the pompous Captain Mainwaring and the uncouth Warden Hodges.

Maurice Yeatman, the Verger

Maurice Yeatman, the Verger was one of twins wore spectacles and a flat cap; his face bore an earnest, sometimes outraged, expression and he was usually of a dour, officious personality. He was also the skipper of Walmington’s sea scouts and, as such, was seen boating, camping, marching and parading in his semi-nautical uniform.

Despite all that age, war, and their own pomposity, infighting and incompetence throws at them, these fine boys make up England’s last line of defence against Nazi attack. God save them – and God help us!

14th May, 1940: With the threat of invasion from Nazi Germany a horrifying reality, a new branch of the military was created out of the men not yet in the regular army.

As if the Germans and constant threat of invasion weren’t bad enough, the platoon have their own local problems, not least from common greengrocer and despised chief ARP Warden Hodges; Pike’s interfering mother Mavis (who has a “relationship” with Wilson); the vicar and verger who run the church hall where the platoon parade; and Mainwaring’s terrifying but never-seen wife Elizabeth.