Cast: Frank Williams (vicar), Edward Sinclair (verger), Janet Davies (Mrs Pike), Nan Braunton (Cissy Godfrey), Olive Mercer (Mrs Yeatman), Sally Douglas (Blodwen), the Graham twins (Doris and Dora), Hugh Hastings (pianist) and Eleanor Smale (Mrs Prosser).
Recorded
30/10/1969
First broadcast
6/11/1969
22. MENACE FROM THE DEEP
The platoon is manning the machine gun post at the end of the pier for four consecutive nights. Jones has brought some sausages, Godfrey some mustard, Pike some cake, Frazer some fruit, Walker some whisky and Wilson some acid drops: a ‘gastronomic orgy’ is keenly anticipated. Mainwaring and Wilson disagree about which one of them should sleep in the solitary hammock (‘We shall take it in turns,’ Mainwaring concludes. ‘But I shall use it first’). Pike, however, loses both the boat and the food, and Frazer begins to hear the cries of ancient mariners. Worse is to come: a wandering sea mine threatens to blow the platoon up.
Cast: Bill Pertwee (Chief Warden Hodges), Stuart Sherwin (second ARP warden), Bill Treacher (1st sailor) and Larry Martyn (2nd sailor).
Recorded
7/11/1969
First broadcast
13/11/1969
23. BRANDED
Private Godfrey is revealed to have been a conscientious objector during the previous campaign. He is sent home in disgrace and ostracised by the rest of the platoon. During a subsequent exercise, however, the room fills with smoke, Mainwaring falls unconscious and one brave man saves him: ‘that damned conchie’, Godfrey.
Cast: Bill Pertwee (Chief Warden Hodges), Nan Braunton (Cissy Godfrey), Stuart Sherwin (2nd ARP warden) and Roger Avon (doctor).
Recorded
14/11/1969
First broadcast
20/11/1969
24. MAN HUNT
Private Walker introduces a tracking dog to the platoon. When a discarded parachute is discovered in the area, the new recruit is put to work in pursuit of the intruder.
Cast: Bill Pertwee (Chief Warden Hodges), Janet Davies (Mrs Pike), Patrick Tull (suspect), Robert Aldous (German pilot), Robert Moore (large man), Leon Cortez (small man), Olive Mercer (fierce woman), Miranda Hampton (sexy woman) and Bran the dog (as himself).
Recorded
21/11/1969
First broadcast
27/11/1969
25. NO SPRING FOR FRAZER
When Mainwaring inspects the Lewis gun with which Frazer has been entrusted, he discovers that the butterfly spring is missing. After searching Frazer’s workshop it is surmised that the errant spring must have ended up inside the coffin of the recently deceased Horace Blewitt, brother of Sidney – in whose house he now lies in rest. How can it possibly be retrieved? Mainwaring has a plan.
Cast: Frank Williams (vicar), Edward Sinclair (verger), Harold Bennett (Mr Blewitt), Joan Cooper (Miss Baker) and Ronnie Brandon (Mr Drury).
Recorded
28/11/1969
First broadcast
4/12/1969
26. SONS OF THE SEA
‘I have an idea,’ Mainwaring tells a worried-looking Wilson. ‘River patrols! Half a dozen determined men, armed to the teeth, with a boat. They could play havoc with the Nazis!’ What Mainwaring thinks is wise, and what actually is wise, are often, as Wilson well knows, two entirely different things, and the platoon soon finds itself lost in thick fog, drifting helplessly across the English Channel.
Cast: Michael Bilton (Mr Maxwell), Ralph Ball (man on station), John Leeson (1st soldier) and Jonathan Holt (2nd soldier).
Recorded
5/12/1969
First broadcast
11/12/1969
Series Four (BBC1, colour)
27. THE BIG PARADE
Spitfire Fund Week is coming up, and with it the prospect of a high-profile procession. Mainwaring hopes to head it with the Home Guard, Hodges with the ARP, the verger with his Sea Scouts. Mainwaring thinks he knows what will win that prime position for his platoon: a regimental mascot. Sponge volunteers one of his fiercest rams, and Walker comes up with a more expensive ‘customised’ model, but the burning question remains unresolved – who’s on first?
Cast: Bill Pertwee (Chief Warden Hodges), Janet Davies (Mrs Pike), Edward Sinclair (verger), Colin Bean (Pte Sponge) and Pamela Cundell (Mrs Fox).
Recorded
17/7/1970
First broadcast
25/9/1970
28. DON’T FORGET THE DIVER
A major exercise takes place involving all of the Home Guard units, and the Walmington-on-Sea platoon has to plant a bomb in the windmill being occupied by their Eastgate rivals. Mainwaring’s men rely on a variety of disguises to reach the building unnoticed, but then it is up to Jones to secrete the bomb inside.
Cast: Bill Pertwee (Chief Warden Hodges), Frank Williams (vicar), Edward Sinclair (verger), Geoffrey Lumsden (Capt. Square), Robert Raglan (Home Guard sergeant), Colin Bean (Pte Sponge), Don Estelle (2nd ARP warden) and Verne Morgan (landlord).
Recorded
24/7/1970
First broadcast
2/10/1970
29. BOOTS, BOOTS, BOOTS
The Walmington-on-Sea platoon receives instruction in the three Fs: fast, functional and fit feet. Mainwaring declares this a most excellent idea, and proceeds to march his men into an acute state of foot fatigue. When he then announces plans for a 20-mile route march, the exhausted platoon decides to teach him a lesson.
Cast: Bill Pertwee (Chief Warden Hodges), Janet Davies (Mrs Pike) and Eric Chitty (Mr Sedgewick).
Recorded
31/7/1970
First broadcast
9/10/1970
30. SERGEANT – SAVE MY BOY!
Pike – stupid boy – is caught on some barbed wire in the middle of a mine field. It gets worse: the minefield is on the beach, the tide is starting to come in, and poor Pike cannot swim. With the Engineers slow to arrive, and the rest of the platoon unsure of how to progress, it is left to Private Godfrey, of all people, to come up with a solution.
Cast: Bill Pertwee (Chief Warden Hodges), Janet Davies (Mrs Pike) and Michael Knowles (Engineer officer).
Recorded
27/6/1970
First broadcast
16/10/1970
31. DON’T FENCE ME IN
The men of Walmington-on-Sea have been sent over to guard the local Italian POW camp. Mainwaring, predictably, is most unimpressed by the prisoners’ patent lack of discipline, but Walker’s attitude towards them seems suspiciously simpatico. Could he possibly, Mainwaring wonders, be a ‘fifth columnist’?
Cast: Edward Evans (General Monteverdi), John Ringham (Capt. Bailey) and Larry Martyn (Italian POW).
Recorded
10/7/1970
First broadcast
23/10/1970
32. ABSENT FRIENDS
Mainwaring – who has been delayed at another meeting – arrives at the church hall and is appalled by what Wilson has allowed the men to get up to in his absence: they have all gone down the pub to play against the ARP wardens at darts. Furious, he orders Wilson to bring all of them back immediately, but, as there are two free pints on offer to the victors of the match, the men are staying where they are. Mainwaring, as a consequence, finds himself short of help when reports come in of an armed IRA suspect at large in the area.
Cast: Bill Pertwee (Chief Warden Hodges), Janet Davies (Mrs Pike), Edward Sinclair (verger), J. G. Devlin (Regan), Arthur English (policeman), Patrick Connor (Shamus), Verne Morgan (landlord) and Michael Lomax (2nd ARP warden).
Recorded
7/8/1970
First broadcast
30/10/1970
33. PUT THAT LIGHT OUT
Mainwaring sets up an observation post in the local lighthouse. Jones’ section is first on duty. By accident, the light is switched on – illuminating the entire town just as the sirens are signalling the imminent arrival of enemy bombers. Mainwaring must alert Jones to the problem – but the telephone is disconnect
ed.
Cast: Bill Pertwee (Chief Warden Hodges), Stuart Sherwin (2nd ARP warden), Gordon Peters (lighthouse keeper) and Avril Rogers (telephone operator).
Recorded
30/10/1970
First broadcast
6/11/1970
34. THE TWO AND A HALF FEATHERS
Jack Jones: butcher, soldier, war-bore – and coward? Some of his friends and neighbours are forced to think the unthinkable after the arrival in town of George ‘Nobby’ Clarke, a former comrade who claims that Jones abandoned him in the desert to die when they fought together under General Kitchener in the Sudan. Jones, however, has still to tell his side of the story.
Cast: Bill Pertwee (Chief Warden Hodges), John Cater (Pte Clarke), Wendy Richard (Edith Parish), Queenie Watts (Edna), Gilda Perry (Doreen), Linda James (Betty), Parnell McGarry (Elizabeth) and John Ash (Raymond).
Recorded
6/11/1970
First broadcast
13/11/1970
35. MUM’S ARMY
Captain Mainwaring is recruiting Walmington women to join the fight against the common foe. The normally dour and aloof Captain, whose wife Elizabeth ‘hasn’t left the house since Munich’, appears to take an instant shine to one woman in particular: the fragrant Fiona Gray, a new arrival in town from London. Brief though their encounter has been, it is not long before rumours start to circulate about how there is more to this relationship than meets the eye.
Cast: Carmen Silvera (Mrs Fiona Gray), Janet Davies (Mrs Pike), Wendy Richard (Edith Parish), Pamela Cundell (Mrs Fox), Julian Burberry (Miss Ironside), Rosemary Faith (Ivy Samways), Melita Manger (waitress), David Gilchrist (serviceman), Eleanor Smale (Mrs Prosser), Deirdre Costello (buffet attendant) and Jack Le White (porter).
Recorded
13/11/1970
First broadcast
20/11/1970
36. THE TEST
The ARP wardens have challenged the Home Guard to a cricket match. ‘We’re walking out here as free men to play a friendly British game,’ Mainwaring assures Wilson. ‘That’s what we’re fighting for, you know.’ Hodges, however, has other ideas. He has a secret weapon in his team: the fiery cricket pro Ernie Egan. The wardens bat first and set an intimidating target of 152 for 4 declared. The run chase begins.
Cast: Bill Pertwee (Chief Warden Hodges), Frank Williams (vicar), Edward Sinclair (verger), Don Estelle (Gerald), Harold Bennett (Mr Blewitt) and Freddie Trueman (Ernie Egan).
Recorded
20/11/1970
First broadcast
27/11/1970
37. A. WILSON (MANAGER)?
What a morning for Mainwaring: not only, he discovers, is Wilson about to be promoted by the Home Guard – his commission has come through – but he is also about to be promoted by the bank: he is set to be made manager of the Eastgate branch. This means that Mainwaring will have to make do with Pike as his chief clerk and Jones as his sergeant – unless, of course, Wilson’s fortunes change suddenly for the worse.
Cast: Frank Williams (vicar), Edward Sinclair (verger), Janet Davies (Mrs Pike), Blake Butler (Mr West), Robert Raglan (Capt. Pritchard), Arthur Brough (Mr Boyle), Colin Bean (Pte Sponge) and Hugh Hastings (Pte Hastings).
Recorded
27/11/1970
First broadcast
4/12/1970
38. UNINVITED GUESTS
Following the bombing of the ARP HQ, Hodges moves his wardens into the church hall alongside the Home Guard. Mainwaring, appalled by this development, protests to the vicar, Area HQ, the Civil Defence people and a fellow Rotarian, and eventually Hodges’ mob are ordered to leave, but not for another week.
Cast: Bill Pertwee (Chief Warden Hodges), Frank Williams (vicar), Edward Sinclair (verger), Rose Hill (Mrs Cole) and Don Estelle (Gerald).
Recorded
4/12/1970
First broadcast
11/12/1970
39. FALLEN IDOL
Mainwaring has always epitomised the principle of military sobriety to his men, but, after Captain Square leads him astray one day in the officers’ mess, he ends up inebriated. Only something genuinely heroic now can restore his damaged reputation in the eyes of his men.
Cast: Geoffrey Lumsden (Captain Square), Rex Garner (Capt. Ashley-Jones), Michael Knowles (Capt. Reed), Anthony Sagar (sgt major), Tom Mennard (mess orderly) and Robert Raglan (Capt. Pritchard).
Recorded
11/12/1970
First broadcast
18/12/1970
Special Episode for Christmas (BBC1, colour)
40. BATTLE OF THE GIANTS
Captain Square provokes Captain Mainwaring into accepting the challenge of an initiative test between Walmington-on-Sea’s Home Guard and its Eastgate rivals, with Hodges, the vicar and the verger as judges. The contest, to begin with, goes well for Mainwaring’s platoon, but then Jones gets a bad attack of malaria, and defeat seems set to be snatched from the jaws of victory.
Cast: Bill Pertwee (Chief Warden Hodges), Geoffrey Lumsden (Capt. Square), Frank Williams (vicar), Edward Sinclair (verger), Robert Raglan (colonel), Charles Hill (sergeant), Colin Bean (Pte Sponge) and Rosemary Faith (barmaid).
Recorded
19/10/1971
First broadcast
Series Five (BBC1, colour)
41. ASLEEP IN THE DEEP
A bomb falls on the local pumping station where Walker and Godfrey have the misfortune to be on patrol. Efforts at freeing them result in the rest of the platoon – and Hodges – being trapped alongside them. When a pipe bursts and the room fills rapidly up with water, Frazer is moved to mouth his favourite words of comfort: ‘We’re doomed!’
Cast: Bill Pertwee (Chief Warden Hodges) and Colin Bean (Pte Sponge).
Recorded
26/5/1972
First broadcast
6/10/1972
42. KEEP YOUNG AND BEAUTIFUL
The government has decided to call for an injection of youth into the Home Guard, along with the syphoning-off of the more elderly of its current members into the ARP. When an exchange of personnel is mooted, the platoon decides to take drastic action: some dye their hair, others enrich their skin, the sergeant dons an ‘abdominal corset’ and the captain a toupee. ‘It’s awful!’ laughs Wilson. ‘No, no, no: awfully good.’ ‘Watch it, Wilson’, mutters Mainwaring, ‘You might snap your girdle.’
Cast: Bill Pertwee (Chief Warden Hodges), Derek Bond (minister), Robert Raglan (colonel), James Ottaway (1st MP) and Charles Morgan (2nd MP).
Recorded
9/6/1972
First broadcast
13/10/1972
43. A SOLDIER’S FAREWELL
Mainwaring is depressed: his men are falling far short of his expectations, his leadership is underappreciated, and now – following a rich cheese supper – his dreams are filled with Frenchmen.
Cast: Bill Pertwee (Chief Warden Hodges), Frank Williams (vicar), Robert Gillespie (Charles Boyer), Joan Savage (Greta Garbo), Joy Allen (clippie) and Colin Bean (Pte Sponge).
Recorded
2/6/1972
First broadcast
20/10/1972
44. GETTING THE BIRD
Wilson is missing from the platoon. Frazer – ‘I’m not one for tittle-tattle or gossip of any kind’ – fears there has been some kind of ‘r-r-rift’, and Godfrey has spotted their sergeant with his arm around an attractive – and much younger – woman. Jones, meanwhile, is looking not so much for something ‘on the side’ as ‘off the ration’, and Walker thinks he can help …
Cast: Bill Pertwee (Chief Warden Hodges), Frank Williams (vicar), Edward Sinclair (verger), Pamela Cundell (Mrs Fox), Olive Mercer (Mrs Yeatman), Seretta Wilson (Wren) and Alvar Lidell (newsreader).
Recorded
19/5/1972
First broadcast
27/10/1972
45. THE DESPERATE DRIVE OF CORPORAL JONES
The platoon, during the course of a weekend exercise, occupies a deserted barn which tu
rns out to be the target for some 25-pounders. Back at HQ, Jones and Godfrey try phoning to stop the firing, but Godfrey has cut the telephone wire by mistake. There is only one solution: Jones will have to reach the barn before it is blown to bits.
Cast: Bill Pertwee (Chief Warden Hodges), Frank Williams (vicar), Edward Sinclair (verger), Robert Raglan (colonel), Larry Martyn (signals private) and James Taylor (artillery officer).
Recorded
16/6/1972
First broadcast
3/11/1972
46. IF THE CAP FITS …
Mainwaring is giving a slide show, and Frazer is far from happy. It is a fine summer’s evening, moans the Scot, and this pompous fool is wasting everyone’s time with his irrelevant lectures. One way to deal with a grumbler is to let him take over, so, for a few days, Mainwaring decides to swap roles with Frazer.
Cast: Bill Pertwee (Chief Warden Hodges), Campbell Singer (Major General Menzies), Robert Raglan (colonel), Edward Sinclair (verger), Alex McAvoy (sergeant) and Dennis Blanch (2nd lieutenant).
Recorded
30/6/1972
First broadcast
10/11/1972