大象传媒

"The first thing they do is learn you how to march" recalls former National Serviceman Doug Clark from Cardiff. Between 1947 and 1963, when the last recruit finally left the services, thousands of young men in Wales and the rest of the United Kingdom were called up to do two years of National Service and endure the rituals of 'square-bashing' and kit inspections. Historian Phil Carradice speaks to some of the survivors of that experience, men who valiantly undertook noble tasks such as painting coal white, or scrubbed barrack-room floors, or learnt how to march as they underwent basic training in the army, the Royal Navy or the RAF.