Dad's Army

[Fiona1986]

I had completely missed the news of Ian Lavender's death, how very sad.

I'm not sure if I've seen all available eps of Dad's Army but I did watch it as a child and "Don't tell him, Pike," is commonly quoted in my family. I'll still watch it if it happens to come on TV, but that's not often as I rarely watch actual TV.

Watching it in the 90s I think I sort of assumed that it was filmed nearer to war-time than it really was. I just knew it was "old" and being repeated, and I couldn't really differentiate between the late 40s and the late 60s. So I was a bit surprised upon discovering the cast were younger than I thought they'd be. I still have to remind myself that it isn't a 40s show and that Ian Lavender was in his 70s, not his 90s.

[timv]

Part of the 'old-fashioned' atmosphere for the series - the outdoor shots at least - may come from the fact that it was filmed in remote areas of Norfolk, from the late 1960s onwards , which had not changed much from wartime. Nowadays, or even in the 2000s, I suspect that outdoor shots of the fictional Walmington-on-Sea and its surrounding countryside would have had more of a visual sense of a 'film set' with buildings mocked-up, old vehicles etc brought in and so on; but as of the start of the show in 1968 these areas of East Anglia had not been altered much since the 1940s as there had been little new development and the holiday industry was largely restricted to campsites and caravan parks on the coast. I used to go on holiday to the north Norfolk coast around Cromer and Sheringham in this period and it was very 'unspoiled' , so it would be easy to do outdoor shots without much alteration and pretend that it was still wartime.

The many filmshots of the team on military manoevures , memorably with Corporal Jones' van, were done on a former military training area taken over in wartime from local farms around the town of Thetford, at the S end of Norfolk well away from the tourist coast, and the crew and actors used to stay in hotels and pubs there for filming; some of the 'Walmington' outdoor shots were done there or in surrounding villages. The pine woods where a lot of the outdoor action takes place was in Thetford Forest military training zone, which the British and American armies had used after as well as before 1945 so it was well-preserved; the episode with the Home Guard platoon chosen to guard the King's train as it passed through the area was shot on the 'heritage' railway line near Sheringham, which I visited on holiday at the time and which was deliberately kept as it was in the 1940s for tourists after the rest of the local coast line was shut down in the Beeching railway cuts in the 1960s. The villages around Sheringham were little changed from the 1940s at the time, and holiday homes had not taken off in that area yet.

The episodes which do look really ancient were the black and white ones in Series One, most of which were done in the studio; I never saw these at the time (our family only picked up on the series as something to watch later on, and my parents initially had doubts about the ethics of making fun of wartime events, my father having served in the army and been in D-'Day). The series only caught on a bit later. Incidentally, it was well enough lodged in culture for Antonia Forest to reference it in one of her 1970s Marlows books - in The Attic Term there's a reference to someone, possibly Nicola, comparing the old priest and his young assistant in the Kipling poem 'Eddi's Service' (about the Anglo-Saxon Church's conversion of Sussex led by St. Wilfrid and his aide Eddi) to Corporal Jones and Private Pike.

[Boatbuilder]

As well as there being the Dad's Army Museum in Thetford, there is also the official home to the Dads Army Appreciation Society's collection since 2000 at Bressingham Gardens near Diss in Norfolk.

My last visit to Bressingham was in 2015 and here are pictures I took at the time (the secretary is my grand-daughter ):

[Katharine]

I have seen the Dad's Army display at Bressingham Steam Museum near Diss many times, but haven't visited the museum in Thetford. I really must get around to going one day, it's fairly easy to do as a day trip, and I've passed through Thetford numerous times. Interesting to see the photos - I don't remember seeing the air raid shelter, and I've definitely been since 2015 - I wonder if it is still there, or whether I'm just not very observant!

The only time I've stopped in Thetford was a quick visit to an English Heritage site, but we were on the way to somewhere else, so there wasn't time to see anything else. I have however stopped for picnics in the forest several times.

Tim, I don't know how much (if at all) Sheringham has changed since your childhood visits, but it is still a lovely place, and I would love to be able to move there one day. I didn't manage a trip last year, but I'm hoping to be able to pop up for a few hours next month - I need my 'fix' of North Norfolk.

[Bertie]

Great photos, Boatbuilder.
That's really made me want to visit there.

My brother took his kids on a lengthy journey to the National Railway Museum at York, yesterday. Somewhere we visited a number of times as youngsters and always really enjoyed it. Sadly, they're of the more impatient, interactive generation and soon got bored of looking at the trains without being able to climb on them or ride on them. So they went to another place with their mum, and my brother did exactly what I would have done in his place - stayed and looked around the Museum for another couple of hours!

[Katharine]

Ah York railway museum - on the day of the royal wedding back in 1981, British Rail offered mega cheap tickets. As a family of five, my parents took advantage of the massive savings and we went up to York for the day - quite a journey from Suffolk. Even though I would have been in my teens at the time, I seem to remember it was quite a good day, although I don't remember much about it.

Bertie, I'm glad your brother was able to look around at his leisure rather than giving up to please the rest of the family. Shame they didn't share his enthusiasm, but hopefully they enjoyed whatever else they did instead, so everyone was happy.

On the subject of museums, I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but when my grandparents' house had to be cleared several years ago, we removed the free standing electric oven, which dated from the early 1950s. It was a difficult thing to store, and we tried several local museums, but no one was interested.

The family was reluctantly coming to the conclusion that it would have to go for scrap, but last summer we went to visit a local school which has original air raid shelters under the playground. It is just a small, local charity and they have set out the tunnels with a variety of interesting items relating to the war. However, it was noticed that in their kitchen section, there was no cooker. My family offered it to them, and it was accepted.

I'm looking forward to revisiting when it reopens this year when they should hopefully have had a chance to put the oven on display. We are so pleased it has finally found a home, and pleased that it stayed local.

[Bertie]

That's a really nice story, Katharine. I'm glad all your efforts paid off and it's good that it's found such an appropriate home.

As regards my brother at the National Railway Museum - he rarely puts himself first when it comes to the family and I'm sure he'd have normally felt like he had to stick with the rest. But I guess it had been a long journey, and he was looking forward to seeing the Museum so much again - and they were only going off to some random kids play area like they regularly do anyway - so I'm pleased he opted to stay and enjoyed looking round it again.

[Jack400]

Really good news about the cooker, Katharine. I'd love to see the Dad's Army museum (s). As far as I know they weren't there when I holidayed -and actually visited Diss (nearby) as a former neighbour had moved there many years before.

[timv]

Thanks for the pics of the Dads' Army museum; really fascinating. I must go up there some time and take a look: I was really fond of Cromer but haven't been there for decades. Hopefully it's still pretty unspoilt away from the main resorts and the Broads; most of the stories you see on the TV about it these days seem to be of the cliffs falling into the sea further down the coast around the Happisburgh lighthouse, nearer to Great Yarmouth (which when I visited it was still well away from the sea). I have never been to Diss, where I think PM Harold Wilson (in office 1964-70, 1974-6) 's wife Mary Wilson was brought up; but I have a family connection as my great-grandmother's cousin used to be the Headmaster of a primary school nearby on Late Victorian novelist Rider Haggard's estate. RH was the author of 'King Soloman's Mines' and 'She', which probably gave Enid a few ideas for the 'Lost Tribe' plot of 'The Secret Mountain'.

You get a good sense of the unspoilt North Norfolk countryside in the 1970s in the film adaptation made in the 1970s of L P Hartley's novel 'The Go-Between', whose script was written by the playwright Harold Pinter. This was filmed at a local country house, I think Melton Constable Hall near Cromer; it's one of my favourite films and very atmospheric. The book was based loosely on Hartley's own school holidays at a local manor-house, previously also owned by Rider Haggard, with a schoolfriend in the 1900s.

[Katharine]

I visited the Dad's Army museum in Thetford yesterday with several members of my family. It was full of interesting items - too many for my little brain to fully appreciate in one visit. I shall definitely have to go back another day.

The staff/volunteers were really lovely and very enthusiastic. One of them mentioned that he and his wife sometimes visit care homes in their costumes to help the residents, especially those with dementia, to reconnect with the past. So refreshing to meet such caring people when the news is usually full of selfishness.

We had a quick walk along the river to see Captain Mainwaring's statue and also visited the street where some of the outside scenes were filmed. The town obviously celebrates it's Dad's Army connection as there were a number of murals of the characters dotted around the area. Unfortunately the weather wasn't great - it started off very cold and ended in a thick drizzle which quickly soaked us. If the weather had been better we would have liked to have explored for a bit longer.

On a return visit I'll remember to take some soya milk with me, as the Marigold Tearooms unfortunately didn't have any non-dairy alternative which was a shame as it was a lovely area and I would have liked to have sat and soaked up the atmosphere with a warm beverage. For those who don't have any dietary restrictions, they looked as if they have a nice selection of cakes on offer too.

The shop area had a nice array of memorabilia - amongst other things I bought a lovely card with drawings of all the main characters on it. My mother bought a booklet of war time recipes which I hope to borrow at some point.

I would say it is well worth a visit by anyone who is interested in Dad's Army - amazingly, it is free to enter, although they obviously appreciate donations.

[Viv of Ginger Pop]

Thanks for all these interesting posts - and the photos!

I've got the lurgy. This afternoon it was a toss up between watching BBC Famous Five Film, or a 2 hour interview with historian Andrew Roberts talking about Winston Churchill.

I'm glad I watched Churchill
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYNrUOYZ7h4

Viv

[Stephen]

I've just been watching the first series of Dad's Army made in 1968, and it's very interesting to see the show finding its feet. It's a very charming moment to hear the studio audience actually laughing at the familiar title sequence in the first episode. We now think of a Union Jack arrow bouncing around to be iconic. But seeing it for the first time must have been very funny! The familiar character traits are taking seed. Pike isn't quite the "stupid boy" yet, although the poor lad keeps getting embarrassed by his mother! And Ian Lavender was using a rather strange accent which sometimes sounds London, and sometimes sounds Northern! The most recognisably defined regular is Black Market spiv Walker. Wasn't Jimmy Perry himself once mooted to be playing him?

Very funny and addictive even in its early days. But I was startled to notice a couple of expletives used. I didn't think there was swearing on television, let alone Dad's Army back then!

[Bertie]

Yes, Stephen. Jimmy Perry definitely initially planned to play the wise-cracking Walker, but was talked out of it (probably by David Croft mostly) on the basis that it wouldn't go down well with the rest of the cast since the character had plenty of the one-liners so best not to write all those jokes for yourself to get the laughs. I think that was a good call.

I agree a lot of the characters are already taking shape very early on in the series. An exception is that one catchphrase I love is Mainwaring's 'I wondered who'd be the first to spot that' whenever a mistake he's made is pointed out. That actually only appears from about series 6 or 7, and whenever I watch the earlier series there's so many moments where I'm always waiting for him to say it and wish they'd thought it up sooner!

The early episodes are good, but one thing I'm glad they dropped from series 2 or 3 is the initial scenes where they mimic the old reels of the army with a posh voice over. I prefer it after they drop that and just start the episodes normally.