#dads army

[theworldatwar]

Home Guard units organised motor boat patrols on the canals and waterways to protect local factories and buildings - Edinburgh, Scotland, date unknown

[dec4podcast]

Remembering the last of Dad's Army's 'Magnificent Seven', Ian Lavender (Private Pike), who passed away February 2nd, 2024, aged 77.

Leading UK television historian, publisher, author and podcaster, Oliver Crocker, joins us to share his thoughts on this very talented gentleman, and to recall his own memorable experience working with Ian Lavender on a segment for ITV’s This Morning.

In Ring Dem Bells (1975), the platoon are engaged as extras for a military training film, and to Captain Mainwaring’s disgust they are cast as enemy soldiers. Ian Lavender’s standout, joyously comic performance as a Nazi officer was singled out for particular acclaim in BBC audience research.

Although Private Pike remains his most enduring and universally beloved creation, we also take a wider look at Ian Lavender’s remarkable career beyond Dad’s Army, encompassing television, radio, feature films and theatre.

Onstage at the London Palladium as Monsignor Howard in Sister Act. (Image credit: The Independent)

In this sample short, Oliver reveals something Ian Lavender told him about an unsettling encounter with Britain's tabloid paparazzi following his first battle with cancer in the 1990s;

Our episode webpage has some additional background, images, links, and suggested further media;

Oliver Crocker: Remembering Ian Lavender

In this episode we pay tribute to the last of Dad’s Army’s ‘Magnificent Seven’, Ian Lavender (Private Pike), who passed away on February 2nd

Very special thanks to Oliver Crocker for sharing his memories of Ian Lavender with us. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, you might also like our tribute to Frank Williams, also on our website and wherever you get your podcasts.

Thank you for reading, and listening.

[georgefairbrother]

Branded was a series 3 (1969) episode of Dad’s Army, in which Private Godfrey (Arnold Ridley) submits his written resignation to Captain Mainwaring, who is disinclined to accept it. (This is war, not Sainsbury’s!) Godfrey explains that he’d recently found himself unable to kill a domestic mouse, so therefore concluded that he would be no use to the platoon in combat. He also confides that he had been a conscientious objector in the Great War. Mainwaring is stunned and outraged, and is determined to humiliate Godfrey in front of the platoon. (I may not be able to tear his epaulets off physically, but by God I can do it verbally!).

Godfrey remains in the platoon pending a replacement, and in amongst the usual broad comedy there are moments that are deeply uncomfortable to watch, as he is ostracised by his friends, with Private Frazer (John Laurie) the most vocal and personally cruel.

The Walmington-on-Sea platoon join with the ARP Wardens for a training exercise that involves entering a smoke-filled hut, one by one, to rescue a straw-filled sack representing an unconscious casualty. Mainwaring is unhappy with the amount of smoke in the hut, and increases it to a dangerous level. He can’t resist a snide remark about Private Godfrey wanting to get out of the exercise, which Godfrey himself denies with his usual courtesy.

Mainwaring is the last one through, right behind Godfrey, but is overcome by smoke. When he fails to emerge from the other side, Godfrey reenters the hut and singlehandedly rescues Mainwaring, saving his life.

Godfrey is subsequently recuperating at home in bed, and a contrite and grateful Captain Mainwaring, along with the platoon, pay a visit. Mainwaring notices a picture on the wall, showing Private Godfrey in his Great War uniform and displaying the Military Medal. Godfrey’s sister explains that he had been a stretcher bearer at the Somme, and had gone out into no-mans-land under heavy fire to retrieve the wounded.

Amongst the apologies, Frazer unsurprisingly asserts, 'Speaking for myself, I never doubted you for a single minute'.

Captain Mainwaring’s discomfort at his own lack of medals is a theme that carries right through to the final episode. He asks why Godfrey never wore his medals, to which Godfrey replies that it would seem ‘rather ostentatious’.

“If I’d won the MM," Mainwaring replies, "I would have been so proud that I would have worn it, on my chest, for the whole world to see."

“That would have been all right, sir, because you look like a hero.”

And here Sergeant Wilson delivers the coup de grace to conclude the episode, “It just shows, sir, you can’t always go by appearances.”

Godfrey is appointed the platoon’s medic, for reasons that extended beyond the episode storyline. Arnold Ridley had fought on the Somme in the Somerset Light Infantry, and even more than 50 years on still suffered the debilitating effects of multiple wounds. He therefore struggled to parade with a rifle, so the Red Cross haversack was a useful compromise.

The real-life wars of Dad's Army actor Arnold Ridley

As a film version of Dad's Army is released, BBC News looks at the life of Arnold Ridley, the only actor in the original television series t

[jimhowickfan1]

[fantastictyphoonpeanut]

The late great Clive Dunn (1920-2012) in the Brit TV classic 'Dad's Army 1968-77 as the old Victorian veteran L/Cpl "Don't Panic" Jones in the Home Guard during WWII. In reality Dunn was a real army veteran of WWII, with the 4th Queen's Own Hussars, (their Colonel-in-Chief was none other than Winston Churchill) Trooper Dunn was taken prisoner during a rearguard action in the Greek campaign of '41 and spent 4 long years as a POW. (FTP)

[haveyouseenthismovie-poll]

Have you seen Dad’s Army (2016)?

Yes

No

Haven’t even heard of this movie

Voting ended onFeb 18, 2025

[scotianostra]

John Paton Laurie was born on 25th March 1897.

Laurie was born at Dumfries, to William Laurie, a clerk in a tweed mill and later a hatter and hosier, and Jessie Ann Laurie née Brown Laurie attended Dumfries Academy, before abandoning a career in architecture to serve in the First World War as a member of the Honourable Artillery Company. Upon his demobilisation, he trained to become an actor under Elsie Fogerty at the Central School of Speech and Drama, then based at the Royal Albert Hall, London and first acted on stage in 1921.

A prolific Shakespearian actor, Laurie spent much of the time between 1922 and 1939, playing Shakespearian parts including Hamlet, Richard III and Macbeth at the Old Vic or Stratford-upon-Avon.

He starred in his friend Laurence Olivier's three Shakespearean films, Henry V Hamlet and Richard III He and Olivier also appeared in "s You Like It. During the Second World War, Laurie served in the Home Guard - the only future Dad's Army cast member to do so.

His early work in films included Juno and the Paycock, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. His breakthrough third film was Hitchcock's The 39 Steps in which his menacing, understated performance as a crofter (opposite Peggy Ashcroft) is particularly memorable. Other work included Peter Manson in The Edge of the World, Clive Candy's batman in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, the farmer recruit in The Way Ahead, the brothel proprietor in Fanny by Gaslight, the repugnant Pew in Disney's Treasure Island and Doctor MacFarlane in Hobson's Choice. In the 1945 film I Know Where I'm Going!, Laurie had a small speaking part in a céilidh sequence for which he was also credited as an adviser.

It was on the small screen that we remember Laurie most fondly as Private Frazer in Dad’s Army with his 'Wur doomed, wur awl doomed....” catchphrase. He cropped up in four episodes of the popular classic TV Show, The Avengers, playing a different role each time and in three episodes of Dr. Finlay's Casebook again playing different roles. Of course with a voice like his he was a natural as a storyteller on the bairns TV show Jackanory.

One of his final appearances, looking slightly frail, was in Return to the Edge of the World, directed by Michael Powell in 1978.

John Laurie died aged 83 in the Chalfont and Gerrards Cross Hospital, Chalfont St Peter, from emphysema, he was cremated and his ashes were scattered at sea.

[letusridetocamelot]

@yonderghostshistories couldn’t find ur original ask but here!!😭😭