44. The Avon Papers (Birmingham University Library): AP/20/1/20A, diary entry, 22 July 1940.
45. Anthony Eden confirmed the name change in the House of Commons when asked by a fellow MP: Hansard, vol. 363 HC (DEB) 5s, col. 576.
46. The phrases, of course, come from Winston Churchill’s first speech in the House of Commons as Prime Minister on 13 May 1940, reproduced in Winston Churchill, The Speeches of Winston Churchill ed. David Cannadine (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1990), p. 149.
47. C. D. Lewis, quoted by Longmate, The Real Dad’s Army, p. 33.
48. J. B. Priestley, BBC Home Service, 16 June 1940; the transcript is included in Postscripts, pp. 10–11.
49. John Lehmann, quoted by Longmate, The Real Dad’s Army, p. 32.
50. On the occasion of Taylor’s 80th birthday, he was presented, in a unique military ceremony, with an ornamental clock, and the officer who made the presentation declared that Taylor ‘carried an illuminated history of the British Empire on his left breast’ (see Graves, The Home Guard of Britain, pp. 38–9).
51. Orwell, letter to Partisan Review, 15 April 1941; reproduced in The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters, vol. 2, p. 141.
52. The character of Colonel Horatio Blimp was created by the left-wing cartoonist David Low in 1934, appearing in the London Evening Standard and later in both the Daily Herald and the Manchester Guardian (see Colin Seymour-Ure and Jim Schoff, David Low, London: Secker, 1985). The Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger movie, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), though inspired by Low’s cartoons, softened the satire significantly, but still managed to anger the War Office.
53. See Peter Lewis, A People’s War (London: Methuen, 1986), p. 31; Leonard Mosley, Backs to the Wall: London Under Fire 1939–45 (London: Weidenfeld, 1971), p. 55; and Rex Harrison, Rex: An Autobiography (London: Macmillan, 1974), p. 67.
54. Liddell Hart Centre: Pownall Diary (unpublished extract), 20 June 1940.
55. See Longmate, The Real Dad’s Army, p. 21.
56. Street, From Dusk Till Dawn, pp. 118–19.
57. Sir Edward Grigg, speech to the House of Commons, 6 November 1940: Hansard, vol. 365 HC (DEB) 5s, cols. 1347–8.
58. Ibid., cols. 1352–3.
59. Grigg, speech to the House of Commons, 19 November 1940: Hansard, vol. 365 HC (DEB) 5s, cols. 1886–97.
60. Liddell Hart Centre: Pownall Diary, 29 September 1940.
61. Brophy, Britain’s Home Guard, p. 35.
62. Liddell Hart Centre: Pownall Diary (unpublished entry), 12 August 1940.
63. Pownall had applied successfully for a transfer to Northern Ireland. Eastwood – described by the War Office as ‘one of the foremost young generals in the British Army’ (WM J. K. Howard and H. W. Endicott, Summary Report, British Home Guard, 1941, p. 12) – was not formally appointed by Churchill himself, but Eden acknowledged that he had been the choice of the Prime Minister (PRO: PREM 3/223/4, Eden to Churchill, 16 November 1940). Eastwood, in turn, gave way to Major General Lord Bridgeman in the summer of 1941.
64. See Sir Edward Grigg, speech to the House of Commons, 6 November 1940: Hansard, vol. 365 HC (DEB) 5s, cols. 1349–50.
65. See Graves, The Home Guard of Britain, p. 254.
66. Winston Churchill confirmed the details in the House of Commons on 2 December 1941: Hansard, vol. 376 HC (DEB) 5s, col. 1032.
67. See Longmate, The Real Dad’s Army, p. 60.
68. The phrase is Herbert Morrison’s (PRO: CAB 123/204, Morrison to Sir John Anderson, 10 October 1942).
69. Gloucestershire Record Office: D2095/1, Bn Order 3, paragraph 6, 24 June 1940. The decision was backed up by Home Guard Director-General Eastwood, who wrote in December 1940: ‘Under no circumstances should women be enrolled in the Home Guard’, adding that ‘it is undesirable for women to bear arms’ (PRO: WO 32/9423, J. R. Eastwood, 27 December 1940).
70. P. J. Grigg, PRO: CAB 123/204, Grigg to Herbert Morrison, 22 December 1942.
71. PRO: WO 166/173, Minute to the PM on the future of the HG. Churchill had confirmed his support for Summerskill on 31 October 1941: PRO: WO 32/9423. (See also Hansard, vol. 365 HC (DEB) 5s, cols. 1887, 1897, 1928–32 and vol. 376 HC (DEB) 5s, cols. 1033–8; and Penny Summerfield and Corinna Peniston-Bird, ‘Women in the firing line: the Home Guard and the defence of gender boundaries in Britain in the Second World War’, Women’s History Review, vol. 9, no. 2 (2000), pp. 231–55.)
72. Kentish, Records and Reminiscences of the 4th Buckinghamshire Battalion Home Guard, p. 34.
73. The Story of No. 2 Company of the 7th Battn. Somerset Home Guard (1944), p. 29.
74. E. D. Barclay, The History of the 45th Warwickshire (B’Ham) Battalion Home Guard (Birmingham: n.p., 1945), p. 94.
75. Brophy, Britain’s Home Guard, p. 34.
76. Longmate, The Real Dad’s Army, p. 79.
77. The Times, 12 February 1942, p. 2.
78. Captain Godfrey Nicholson, Conservative MP for Farnham, 11 March 1942; Hansard, vol. 378 HC (DEB) 5s, col. 1129.
79. Brophy, Britain’s Home Guard, p. 36.
80. Orwell, Diary entry, 21 June 1942; reproduced in The Collected Essays, p. 490.
81. Longmate, The Real Dad’s Army, pp. 85 and 106.
82. See, for example, the first-hand accounts in Frank and Joan Shaw, We Remember the Home Guard.
83. Supplementary Report by the 10th Bucks Battalion Home Guard, included in Graves, The Home Guard of Britain, p. 191.
84. The Times, 15 May 1942, p. 2.
85. Ibid., 13 May 1942, p. 2.
86. Ibid., 14 May 1942, p. 4.
87. James Grigg wrote to Churchill on 8 September 1942 informing him of the forthcoming film’s focus ‘on an imaginary type of Army officer who has become an object of ridicule to the general public’, and warning him that its release would give the ‘Blimp conception’ a ‘new lease of life’. Churchill, prompted by Grigg’s over-reaction, attempted, unsuccessfully, to have the film banned. (See the ‘Colonel Blimp File’, PRO: PREM 4 14/15, reproduced in Ian Christie, ed., Powell, Pressburger and Others (London: BFI, 1978), pp. 106–11; and James Chapman, ‘The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) reconsidered’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, no. 15 (1995), pp. 19–54.)
88. Winston Churchill, The Second World War, Vol. 3: The Grand Alliance (London: Cassell, 1950), p. 840.
89. Ibid.
90. The Times, 14 May 1943, p. 4.
91. Ibid.
92. See, for example, The Times, 8 July 1943, p. 2 and 21 December 1943, p. 2.
93. See The Times, 7 September 1944, p. 2.
94. Letter to The Times, 27 October 1944, p. 2.
95. PRO: PREM 3/223/12, Churchill to Grigg, 19 September 1944.
96. Quoted by Longmate, The Real Dad’s Army, p. 122.
97. King George VI, quoted by J. W. Wheeler-Bennett, King George VI: His Life and Reign (London: Macmillan, 1958), p. 615.
98. Pownall, Diary entry, 29 September 1940, Chief of Staff, vol. 2, p. 6.
99. Edmund Burke, ‘Thoughts on the cause of the present discontents’ (1770), in Pre-Revolutionary Writings, ed. Ian Harris (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 184.
100. Measured in March 1943 (see Longmate, The Real Dad’s Army, p. 120), although Graves, in The Home Guard of Britain (p. 168), put the figure at approximately ‘two million’.
101. See Deedes, ‘With pikes and pitchforks’, p. 22; Longmate, The Real Dad’s Army, p. 121; and Vt. Bridgeman, ‘When we had 1,700,000 Home Guards’, Home Guards News, May 1954, p. 14.
Chapter II
1. Phil Silvers, The Man Who Was Bilko (London: W. H. Allen, 1974), p. 203.
2. Larry Gelbart, quoted by Vince Waldron, Classic Sitcoms, 2nd edn (Los Angeles: Silman-James Press, 1997), p. 248.
3. Jimmy Perry, interview with the author, 27 August 2000.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Jimmy Perry, quoted by Pertwee, Dad’s Army, p. 13.
9. Jimmy Perry, interview with the author, 27 August 2000.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid.
15. Beggar My Neighbour (written by Ken Hoare and David Croft’s nephew Mike Sharland) ran on BBC1 for three series (the first two produced-directed by David Croft) between March 1967 and March 1968. It featured two married sisters who lived next door to each other with their respective husbands and it starred Peter Jones (replaced by Desmond Walter-Ellis after the first series), June Whitfield, Reg Varney and Pat Coombs.
16. See Chapters 3–7 of Bill Cotton’s Double Bill (London: Fourth Estate, 2000), for a vivid account of this era at the BBC.
17. David Croft, interview with the author, 23 May 2000.
18. Jimmy Perry, interview with the author, 27 August 2000.
19. David Croft, interview with the author, 23 May 2000.
20. Jimmy Perry, interview with the author, 27 August 2000.
21. David Croft, interview with the author, 23 May 2000.
22. Jimmy Perry, interview with the author, 27 August 2000.
23. David Croft, interview with the author, 23 May 2000.
24. Ibid.
25. Bill Cotton, interview with the author, 6 June 2000.
26. Ibid.
27. Barry Took, interview with the author, 17 May 2000.
28. Michael Mills, in Denis Norden et. al., Coming To You Live! (London: Methuen, 1985), p. 9.
29. Bill Cotton, interview with the author, 6 June 2000.
30. David Croft, interview with the author, 23 May 2000.
31. Tom Sloan, quoted by Paul Ferris, Sir Huge: The Life of Huw Wheldon (London: Michael Joseph, 1990), p. 172.
32. Donald Baverstock, quoted in ibid.
33. Paul Fox, interview with the author, 2 May 2000.
34. Barry Took, interview with the author, 17 May 2000.
35. Tom Sloan, in a BBC lunch-time lecture delivered on 11 December 1969 and published in pamphlet form as Television Light Entertainment (London: BBC, 1969), p. 4.
36. Ibid., p. 5.
37. Ibid., p. 20.
38. Ibid., pp. 17–18.
39. Ibid., p. 17.
40. Ibid., pp. 12–13.
41. Ibid., p. 9.
42. David Croft, interview with the author, 23 May 2000.
43. Hugh Carleton Greene, quoted by Sloan, Television Light Entertainment, p. 18. (See also Hugh Greene, The Third Floor Front (London: Bodley Head, 1969), pp. 13 and 122–42).
44. Mary Whitehouse, quoted by Michael Tracey in A Variety of Lives (London: Bodley Head, 1983), p. 231. (See also Mary Whitehouse, A Most Dangerous Woman? (London: Lion, 1982).)
45. Richard Crossman, The Diaries of a Cabinet Minister, Vol. 2 (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1976), p. 445.
46. The Phil Silvers Show – originally titled You’ll Never Get Rich, and more often referred to informally as Bilko – was broadcast in the US on the CBS network from 20 September 1955 to 19 June 1959; it ran on BBC TV from 20 April 1957 to 2 June 1960, and has continued, of course, to be repeated ever since.
47. The Army Game, made by Granada for ITV, ran for five series from 19 June 1957 to 20 June 1961.
48. Hogan’s Heroes (whose slogan was: ‘If you liked World War II, you’ll love Hogan’s Heroes’) ran in the US on CBS from 17 September 1965 to 4 July 1971; it was shown in the UK by some ITV regional companies from 6 January 1967 to 20 February 1971.
49. Sloan, Television Light Entertainment, p. 12.
50. Mills’ basic response has been preserved in the BBC’s Written Archive Centre (WAC) at Caversham; the rest of his remarks, including his views on the need for a co-writer, were discussed in interviews with both David Croft (23 May 2000) and Jimmy Perry (27 August 2000).
51. Croft and Perry, Dad’s Army: The Lost Episodes, p. 8.
52. Ibid.
53. Perry renamed the bank ‘Swallow’ after it was discovered that his original choice, ‘Martin’s’, was the copyright of an existing bank. The real Martin’s Bank was absorbed into Barclays Bank a year after Dad’s Army began its run, and the name was used in the 1971 movie version of the show.
54. BBC WAC: Dad’s Army File T12/881/1: ‘The Man and the Hour’: Michael Mills, memo to script editor, Light Entertainment, 4 October 1967. (According to a letter dated 25 October 1967 from Heather Dean of the BBC’s Copyright Department to Ann Callender, Jimmy Perry was paid £200 for co-writing the pilot script; David Croft’s fee, as a BBC employee, was dealt with internally, and came to £250.)
55. BBC WAC: James Perry File.
Chapter III
1. F. Scott Fitzgerald, ‘The Rich Boy’ (1922), in The Rich Boy and Other Stories (London: Phoenix, 1998), p. 119.
2. Dad’s Army, ‘Shooting Pains’, first broadcast 11 September 1968.
3. David Croft, interview with the author, 23 May 2000.
4. Ibid.
5. Reiner’s pilot episode, Head of the Family, was broadcast by CBS on 19 July 1960. After the producer Sheldon Leonard told Reiner that he was ‘just not the type to play himself’, Dick Van Dyke was brought in and the retitled show ran for six extremely successful seasons from October 1961 to June 1966. (See Waldron, Classic Sitcoms, pp. 77–82.)
6. Jimmy Perry, interview with the author, 27 August 2000.
7. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), screenplay by Powell and Pressburger (‘Colonel Mannering’ appears in the dinner party scene set in Cadogan Place).
8. Jimmy Perry, interview with the author, 22 November 2000.
9. Quoted by Jimmy Perry, interview with the author, 27 August 2000.
10. Jimmy Perry, interview with the author, 27 August 2000.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid.
13. Michael Mills, quoted by David Croft, interview with the author, 23 May 2000.
14. David Croft, interview with the author, 23 May 2000.
15. The cockney Chief Petty Officer Pertwee; the stuttering Commander Wetherby; the self-echoing Admiral Buttonshaw; the audibly introspective Vice Admiral ‘Burbly’ Burwasher; Commander High Price; and camp criminal The Master.
16. Broadcast 20 March 1967.
17. David Croft, interview with the author, 23 May 2000.
18. BBC WAC: Dad’s Army File T12/881/1: ‘The Man and the Hour’: memo from Michael Mills to E. K. Wilson, 13 November 1967.
19. There is no record in the BBC archive concerning the sum that Pertwee was offered, but what is clear is that none of the actual cast received more than £262.10 per episode for the first series of Dad’s Army (BBC WAC: File T12/890/1).
20. Jimmy Perry, interview with the author, 27 August 2000.
21. David Croft, interview with the author, 23 May 2000.
22. Jimmy Perry, interview with the author, 22 November 2000. Richard Webber, in both his Dad’s Army: A Celebration, p. 19, and The Complete A – Z of Dad’s Army (London: Orion, 2000), p. 91, claims that ‘Jimmy [Perry] initially saw Arthur Lowe playing Sergeant Wilson and Robert Dorning … as Captain Mainwaring.’ Perry told me: ‘That’s wrong. It’s sort of wrong. It is easy to misunderstand. This is the truth: I never said, “Let’s cast Robert Dorning as the Captain.” I just liked them both, liked the way they worked together as actors, and I just knew I wanted to get them both. Then once I’d settled on Arthur as Mainwaring, I tried to get Robert Dorning as Wilson.’
23. Michael Mills, quoted by David Croft, interview with the author, 23 May 2000.
24. John Le Mesurier, A Jobbing Actor (London: Elm Tree Books, 1984), p. 113.
25. Ibid., p. 117.
26. Ibid., pp. 117–18.
27. Michael Mills, in his memo (13 November 1967) to E. K. Wilson (BBC WAC: Dad’s Army File T12/881/1: ‘The Man and the Hour’), had asked the bookings department to ‘engage’ Jack Haig for the first series of Dad’s Army. David Croft (interview with the au
thor, 23 May 2000) believes that Tom Sloan advised Haig that he did ‘not suppose that they’ll have more than three series’, and therefore Haig concluded that ‘Wacky Jacky’ was the better bet.
28. See Clive Dunn, Permission to Speak (London: Century, 1986), p. 196.
29. Ibid., p. 197.
30. Ibid.
31. Clive Dunn, quoted by John Le Mesurier, A Jobbing Actor, p. 118.
32. Ibid.
33. David Croft, interview with the author, 23 May 2000. (Jason had also appeared in an episode of Hugh and I, broadcast on BBC1, 3 June 1967.)
34. Dunn, Permission to Speak, p. 198.
35. David Jason, correspondence with the author, 1 June 2000.
36. Dunn, Permission to Speak, p. 198.
37. BBC WAC: Dad’s Army File T12/890/1: the cast was paid, per episode, the following sums for the first series: John Le Mesurier, £262.10; Arthur Lowe, £210; Clive Dunn, £210; John Laurie, £105; James Beck, £78.15s; Arnold Ridley, £63; Bill Pertwee, £57.15s; and Ian Lavender, £52.10s.
38. David Croft, interview with the author, 23 May 2000.
39. Broadcast on BBC1, 3 January 1965.
40. David Croft, interview with the author, 23 May 2000.
41. BBC WAC: James Beck TV Artists File 1963–70: letter to Bush Bailey, 22 December 1963. Bailey replied on 30 December, and interviewed him on 14 January 1964.
42. The police constable featured in Beggar My Neighbour (broadcast on BBC1, 13 March 1967) and the customs officer in Hugh and I Spy (BBC1, 22 January 1968).
43. David Croft, interview with the author, 23 May 2000. (Arthur English, ten years Beck’s senior, had been briefly considered for the role before the decision was made to opt for a slightly more ‘youthful’ spiv.)
44. Ibid.
45. Ibid.
46. Ian Lavender, interview with the author, 29 May 2000.
47. Ibid.
48. Quoted by Webber, The Complete A – Z of Dad’s Army, p. 35. (Ringham had recently appeared in an episode of Hugh and I Spy broadcast on BBC1, 29 January 1968).
49. Davies – a part-time typist at Richard Stone’s agency – appears as a typist in an episode broadcast on 16 July 1967.
50. Recalled by David Croft, interview with the author, 23 May 2000.
51. The Boswell of the back row, Colin Bean (Private Sponge), published a memoir entitled Who Do You Think You Are Kidding! (London: Minerva, 1998). Other actors who appeared in the back row at some stage during the show’s nine year run were: Freddie Wiles, Freddie White, Leslie Noyes, Michael Moore, Evan Ross, Roger Bourne, Alec Coleman, William Gossling, Peter Whitaker, Martin Dunn, Chris Franks, Ken Wade, Emmett Hennessy, Arthur McGuire, David Chaffer and Lindsay Hooper.
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