The enduring popularity of the BBC TV series Dad's Army has focused attention on one of the strangest and least military armies ever formed - the British Home Guard. What started as an improvised band of volunteers had grown by 1942 into a conscripted, disciplined and well-equipped force with a strength of nearly two million men. Norman Longmate, himself a Home Guard veteran and an authority on wartime Britain, has collected together a wealth of hilarious anecdotes as well as all the unlikely facts to produce the first popular history of the Home Guard to be written since the war. Longmate, ex-Private 'F' Company, 3rd Sussex Battalion, Home Guard, joined 'Dad's Army' at the same age as the fictional character 'Pike', and to this day he contends that the much-loved sitcom was remarkably accurate in its portrayal of life in the Home Guard.

About the Author
Norman Longmate, ex-Private 'F' Company, 3rd Sussex Battalion, Home Guard, joined 'Dad's Army' at the same age as the fictional character 'Pike', 17. To this day he contends that the much-loved sitcom was remarkably accurate in it's portrayal of life in the Home Guard. After the war he read modern history at Worcester College, Oxford worked as a journalist and radio producer of history documentaries and is the author of twenty books on the Second World War. He lives in London.

Reviews
'Just how close the TV was to reality is amply demonstrated in Longmate's affectionate tribute to the real Dad's Army' * The Mail on Sunday *
'No one like Norman Longmate manages to convey with such verve and authority many of the most intriguing aspects of the Home Front' * Juliet Gardiner *



Book Information
ISBN 9781445654034
Author Norman Longmate
Format Paperback
Page Count 96
Imprint Amberley Publishing
Publisher Amberley Publishing
Weight(grams) 302g