The article below comes from a piece in the Wiltshire Gazette by Mark Rowe published in 1991. It is an interview with Michael Maundrell about his experiences in the Home Guard during the war. Additional recollections can be found in Michael’s “memories” post on this site – here.
Sorry for the poor quality of the photograph above – this is the caption from the Wiltshire Gazette : “Home Guard men in the grounds of Compton Bassett House. The men have Home Guard sewn on their tunics’ upper arm. Mr Maundrell has the sergeant’s stripes, far right. Far left is carpenter Harry Stevens of Cherhill. Note the “chip bag” Army caps and Brylcreemed hair.” Michael is on the right.
We may laugh every week at the antics of the Warmington on Sea platoon, but the real Home Guard was no joke for retired farmer Mr Michael Maundrell.
Mr Maundrell, who is 76 and has lived at The Manor House, Calstone, all his life says: “We had to put a lot of time into it. Farming- wise we were working very long hours in those days, six days a week.
“We had double summer time all the year in the war years.”
From 1933 the Maundrell brothers, Michael and George, farmed 1,500 acres, with 24 to 30 men where now there are five. “We had one dairy herd, two flocks of sheep, arable, and pigs for Harris.” The name Maundrell appears on a 1780 map of Wiltshire at Calstone.
Every Sunday at 10am the Calstone platoon paraded until lunchtime. They were based at the village reading room, now part of a house, where they slept when on night exercises. They kept their rifles at home.
Their regular duties mainly included patrolling and manning road blocks. “We used to go to Cherhill in the winter for small arms training indoors,” Mr Maundrell add6.
Calstone was one of eight platoons in A company of the 1st Battalion of the Wiltshire Home Guard, the others being Pewsham, Cherhill, Compton Bassett, Yatesbury, Hilmarton, Heddington and Highway.
Major The Hon Raymond Addington of Highway Manor was in command, with Capt Guy Benson of Compton Bassett House as adjutant. Mr Maundrell was a sergeant, and his brother George the Calstone platoon’s Lieutenant.
Farm labourers and Harris’ Caine bacon factory workers were most of the Home Guard privates.
Mr Maundrell still has typed notes of the platoon’s life. One line from self-defence tips could have come straight from Dad’s Army’s Captain Mainwaring:
“In fighting the Boche we must forget all our natural decent instincts and ideas about behaving like a gentleman or playing cricket. The Boche is out to do us in by any foul trick he can.”
Exercises were in earnest, however, because in the event of a German attack, the Home Guard would fight for their community and act as guides for regular troops new to the area. One typed report explains a February exercise.
“Enemy have landed on airfields about Bath and are moving eastwards. They have cyclists, motor cyclists, small armoured cars and commandeered lorries and buses.”
“They are reported to be at Christian Malford and Laycock (sic).”
The Home Guard was wound down at the end of 1944 and on January 3, 1945, the Calstone platoon held a demob supper. Mr Maundrell still has the receipts. Nine gallons (72 pints) of Ushers beer cost £3.4s.0d, and nine gallons of Wadworth’s ale cost £3.8s.0d. It works out at less than five pence a pint. “Better beer, too,” Mr Maundrell chuckled.