JOHN Coldrick's reminiscence about the real life Home Guard (Letters, September 14) is surely deserving of inclusion in a television episode of Dad's Army. Here is another.

I was serving in a small Royal Navy landing barge base on the River Dart when we were requested to provide a guard of honour in a parade to celebrate Wings for Victory Week in a nearby village.

Also parading were the local Home Guard who had recently acquired a piece of artillery known as a Smith Gun. They were extremely proud of this, their previous weaponry having been pitchforks and pikes and were anxious to show it off.

The day before the parade a meeting of the organisers was hurriedly summoned. It seems the Home Guard had taken their Smith Gun on a dummy run and had discovered it was too wide to pass along a narrow part of the route. During this meeting our Commanding Officer was called away, but the matter was readily resolved with a minor change of route.

Our CO was unaware of this when he took up his position at the head of the parade and with drawn sword proudly marched along the original route while everyone else smartly left wheeled in accordance with the new orders.

On reaching the main street of the village the Home Guard and their Smith Gun were tumultuously acclaimed. No one seemed to notice the commander of the guard was missing and none of us ever dared to ask him how far he had marched on his own before realising the rest of the parade had gone another way.

JOHN HINTON,

Worcester.