My Dad would have been 85 today.
He died back in 2016 in the worst June I have ever had the sadness and misfortune to live through but as time has time has moved on, as it always does with unsentimental determination and ferocity, I have found myself remembering and treasuring many of the things he used to love.
Such as Dad’s Army, a British sitcom made for the BBC by Jim Perry and David Croft which ran for nine seasons from 1968 to 1967 and centred on members of the Home Guard, men from the local community who were ineligible for active military service for various reasons, mostly old age (hence the use of the term “Dad’s Army”).
According to the Dad’s Army Wiki, the series, originally slated to be called The Fighting Tigers, was partially inspired by “co-writer and creator Jimmy Perry’s real-life experiences in the Local Defence Volunteers (later known as the Home Guard)”:
“Perry had been 17 years old when he joined the 10th Hertfordshire Battalion and with a mother who did not like him being out at night and fearing he might catch cold, he bore more than a passing resemblance to the character of Frank Pike. An elderly Lance-Corporal in the outfit often referred to fighting under Kitchener against the “Fuzzy Wuzzies” and proved to be a perfect model for Jones. Other influences were the film Whiskey Galore!, and the work of comedians such as Will Hay whose film Oh, Mr Porter! featured a pompous ass, an old man and a young man which gave him Mainwaring, Godfrey and Pike. Another influence was the Lancastrian comedian Robb Wilton, who portrayed a work-shy husband who joined the Home Guard in numerous comic sketches during WW2.”
Perry’s real life experiences gave birth to a very funny TV show, populated by hilarious, richly-realised characters who came complete with their own catchphrases, real lives and a healthy sense of what being in the Home Guard was really like.
While they took their role seriously as the domestic protectors of Britain, and specifically the fictional town on Walmington-on-Sea, while the country’s military was fighting over the continent (and in its skies and waters), not everyone viewed them with the same gravity, particularly ARP (Air Raid Protection) Chief Warden Hodges (Bill Pertwee) who was a constant thorn in the side of the local Home Guard, and its commanding officer, Captain George Mainwaring (Arthur Lowe) who takeshimself exceptionally seriously.
So seriously in fact that the local bank manager, who has no experience of actual combat (while he served as a lieutenant in World War 1, he only arrived in France in 1919), refuses to accept help from anyone, or at least not outwardly.
This meant that the well-intentioned patriot (whose heart was in the right place at least) regularly gets the 24 hour clock, key to scheduling of military activities, wrong, marches his men to the wrong location on weekend training camps, and never quite delivers his beloved instructional gatherings with the aplomb he has in mind.
It is his unbending unwillingness to yield an iota of the imagined authority of his role that makes him a source of much of the humour in the show, with the Captain regularly subjected to all kinds of indignities, both verbal and physical, with barely an episode going by where he isn’t humourously belittled in some way.
His right hand man, both at the bank and in the Home Guard, is Sergeant Arthur Wilson (John Le Mesurier), a diffident man who possesses actual military experience but who always defers to his commanding officer and boss, although not without questioning him with one of the show’s immortal catchphrases “Do you think that’s wise, Sir?”
Wilson’s nephew, Private Pike (Ian Lavender), who is a regular recipient of Mainwaring’s ire and another of Dad’s Army’s stock standard phrases, “You stupid boy!”, always delivered with the just the right amount of withering pomposity, is a real mummy’s boy who grates on the nerves of his uncle who is as acquiescent with his sister Mavis (Janet Pike) as he is with his Captain.
To be fair to Mainwaring, he does have a lot to contend with a host of gloriously eccentric characters in his platoon.
Take my great favourite, and that of the ladies of the town, Lance-Corporal Jack Jones (Clive Dunn), Walmington-on-Sea’s butcher, who has a long history of military service, including in the Sudan and India, and who responds to most situations with a rousingly hilarious “Don’t panic! Don’t panic!” while, of course, being the only one who actually panics.
He was a real favourite of my dad and I, a character who always acted with the sincerest of enthusiasm and commitment but with a propensity to go to pieces when the chips were down and was, as a result, endearingly funny.
I loved everyone in the show, including dear elderly Private Charles Godfrey MM (Arnold Ridley), who was always needing to go to the toilet at inopportune moments, canny Scot Private James Frazer (John Laurie) and local spiv Private Joe Walker (James Beck), but Jones, wonderfully goofy, heartfelt and honest Jones was the one I loved most, the beating heart of a show that actually had more than few tender moments in amongst all the farcical humour and gently affectionate satire.
The joy of Dad’s Army, which has been the subject of 1971 and 2016 feature films, a stage play and a radio series (on which three of the series’ lost episodes were recreated with much of the original cast), was that it used the history of the period to drive much of the storyline and humour, as well going to a great deal of trouble to give us amusingly fully fleshed out characters and narratives that performed wonders within the tight time limits of the sitcom structure.
But more than that for me, it, along with many other shows of the period such as The Good Life, Liver Birds and To the Manor Born, gave my dad and I a shared language, a common place to meet viewing-wise that meant I shared much more cultural overlap with my father than many other kids my age.
Maybe it was because I’ve always been an old soul in a young body (albeit one with excitable, extrovert attributes) but there was something about these shows that I loved, that appealed because they were funny and clever, but because I think, my dad shared a similar satirical sense of humour, a willingness to both value things and affectionately make fun of them, an inclination to question and subvert the established order if you like.
It bonded us in general life but was most acutely felt when we were watching shows like Dad’s Army, which is why on his birthday, and many other days besides of course, I re-watch many of the shows that we shared together if only to feel a little closer to a man I loved a lot and who gave me so much, not least the ability to laugh at life, which when you think about it is a very good thing, especially in these trying times.