Forty years on from Dad’s Army, one of Britain’s best loved actors, Ian Lavender is meeting the men and women who, like his character Private Pike, were just teenagers when they served on the Home Front during the Second World War.
Through Pike, Ian has a fictional insight into life in the Home Guard but the Home Guard was just one part of the Home Front. What was life really like for the millions of young people serving in thousands of different roles that were so vital to victory?
Travelling across the country Ian will discover what Secretary of State for War, Antony Eden's call to the country to do "whatever was needed" actually meant to so many teenagers’ day to day lives and how it changed some forever.
Taking to the skies in a spitfire, cycling along country lanes and struggling to control a rat catcher’s van he meets Land Girls, Nurses, WAFS, Entertainers, Forestry Workers, Bevin Boys and a real life Private Pike all working in roles they never could have imagined.
The Home Front was a crucial part of the war effort and now, at a time when the Nation Remembers, the people Ian meets and the stories of how they “did their bit”, offer a poignant reminder of not only what their generation did for King and Country but what they did for us all.
