Any man between the ages of 17 and 65 years could join, and many of the volunteers were men who were young but had failed the military medicals and so were unable to sign up.

Training was in the evenings and the Guard would receive instruction in such activities as unarmed combat, weapons handling and even sabotage!

It was thought that there would be around 150,000 volunteers over the course of the war but within 24 hours of Anthony Eden’s radio broadcast asking for volunteers they had 250,000 men and, by August of 1940, over 1½ million men had served in the Home Guard—10 times the number that had been expected.