DAD'S ARMY - but not as we know it
Pat (nee Pitters) and Derek Amey

And you thought Captain Mainwaring was a bank manager, didn't you? Well, he wasn't: he was a telephone engineer! Well, of course that well loved character was never anything else but the very epitome of High Street respectability. But there was another kind of Home Guard, a Dad's Army within Dad's Army as it were. Family archive material sifted through recently revealed the existence of what was, if not exactly a secret army, one that was probably unknown to all but those enrolled and their families. One piece of archive turned out to be a printed message, issued probably in late 1944 or early 1945, from the Officer Commanding 22nd Hants (32 G.P.O.) Bn., Home Guard.
This "other" Home Guard, to quote the C.O.'s words, (was) 'composed of 55,000 officers and other ranks - mainly Post Office Servants…...The 22nd Hants (32 G.P.O.) Battalion is part of this impressive body….. It includes the Ports of Southampton, Weymouth and Poole, the town of Bournemouth and the famous military centres of Salisbury and Winchester. The communications which the Battalion helps to provide and maintain…...were to have been in 1940, 1941 and 1942 the means by which an invasion of the South-Western coast would have been controlled: instead, in 1944, they provided the links over which final orders were given for the storming of Europe at the beaches of Normandy - the beginning of the end which will bring retribution to a relentless and unscrupulous enemy. Every officer and man…..is proud to have had these precious lines in his care."
This particular copy was handed not to Corporal Jones but to Corporal Pitters, who had his own story to tell of how Post Office lines played their part in the run-up to D-Day. Nowadays, of course, we have BT and a host of competing service providers, but certainly Post Office Telephones lacked nothing in their service in those days when, again to quote the Commanding Officer; "We have been privileged to form part of the defences of Great Britain during the most perilous hours of its long and famous history. We have been in the fight for good things against evil things, and we have borne a small part in the final Victory. This is our pride and justification". Quite a stirring message to come out of a suitcase-full of photo's and old "papers"!