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The Somerset Home Guard: A Pictorial Roll-call
The Somerset Home Guard A Pictorial Rollcall Author:Jeffrey Wilson This is an extraordinarily detailed account of the Home Guard in Somerset, which is the product of 20 years exhaustive research. More than 2,000 people have been identified and are listed in the index, there are a host of details and memories, including: Clearing courting couples from Wain's Hill before an exercise Using makeshift weapons, inc... more »luding genuine War Department pikes Shooting rabbits or magpies while on patrol, or even the weather vane of St Mary's, Bridgewater Nights spent on sentry duty or sleeping in command posts in skittle alleys or freezing nissen huts before going back to work the next day. Alcoholic escapades to the local hostelry There are tragedies, too with accounts of a number of accidental shootings or exploding grenades. This is a truly a unique survey of Somerset's part in the war effort, now 60 years on from the disbanding of the Home Guard. As King George VI said in his message of December 1944: 'History will say that your share in the greatest of all our struggles for freedom was a vitally important one'. Jeffrey Wilson has ensured that one part of that history has been proudly record for posterity.« less