Norman Longmate: 'Dad's Army was a strikingly accurate portrayal of the Home Guard'

In his 1974 book The Real Dad’s Army, the historian developed the technique of using memories of ordinary people to show the impact of extraordinary events

The Home Guard was one of the strangest and least military armies ever formed – an improvised band of volunteers set up early in the second world war, which had grown, by 1942, into a conscripted, disciplined and well-equipped force of nearly 2 million men. Immortalised in the sitcom Dad’s Army, still a well-loved staple of TV’s repeat repertoire almost 40 years after its last episode was first broadcast, it is about to reach new generations through a film version of the series, with Bill Nighy and Toby Jones in the parts made famous by Arthur Lowe and John Le Mesurier.

It is a good moment to reissue my 1974 book, The Real Dad’s Army, which was originally commissioned to accompany an exhibition at the Imperial War Museum exhibition. It became the first popular history of the Home Guard, using a technique which I had pioneered with an earlier book, How We Lived Then, of requesting memories from the public as a key source. I knew there was a story to be told as, among the thousand or so letters I received while researching How We lived Then, were many reminiscences from veterans of the outfit that was originally known as the Local Defence Volunteers.

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