大象传媒

Having served in the 1st World War, my dad wanted to do his bit again soon after the 2nd World War broke out. So he enlisted in was the the LDV (Local defence volunteers) later to be called the Home Guard. They were a motley bunch, most of whom had fought in the 1st World War, but now found themselves without uniforms, parading with only the odd broomhandle or other unlikely implement. So unprepared were we as a nation at that time.

How proud he was when at last he was issued with a uniform complete with army boots and a proper rifle, even though there was no ammunition! I can still picture him sitting by the fire, lovingly cleaning his rifle barrel with an old rag on a piece of string. The rifle was normally kept standing in the corner of the hallway. One day a rather prim, elderly lady came to visit my mother. When she saw the rifle standing there, she cried out in horror "oh my dear, you don't keep a gun in the house with two smal children, do you?" Where upon Mum hastily replied "Well it isn't loaded you know".

Mother never could understand why her poor husband had to go out in the cold on night-long manouvres. There was one occasion that he told us about, when, in the darkness, a white moving object was sighted in the distance. They crept towards it, bayonets at the ready, convinced it was an enemy parachutist. Neaing the object, they shouted "Who goes There?" as the trained their flash lights upon it, only to find a white horse, flicking it's tail, whilst munching the grass.

On another similar all night manouvre, someone spotted a light on the horizon. They crawled towards it on the wet grass, but, like a mirage, it eemed as far away as ever. Then as the dawn began to break it "dawned" on them that they were following the morning star! So much gor those not-so-wise men of Dad's Army.

Little did we realise, as children, the sacrifices that our parents were prepared to make day after day, night after night. To us it was exiting to sleep under the stars, or later on, in the Morrison shelter and to go out the next day after an air raid, to see who could find the biggest piece of shrapnel or shell.

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