Melvyn Bragg, accompanied by a vintage mobile cinema, travels across the country, to show incredible footage preserved by the British Film Institute and other national and regional film archives, to tell the history of modern Britain.

This episode comes from Osterley Park in Middlesex, the site of the first Home Guard training school, and looks back to the Second World War and a time when millions of ordinary men were prepared to die for their country.

Home Guard recruit Robert Brown comes face to face with his father as a Home Guard company commander, Dad's Army creator Jimmy Perry explains why he signed up to the Home Guard, and Ken Chambers shares his own extraordinary stories from his time in the Home Guard, some of which could have been taken straight from Dad's Army. Show less