It’s a sunny morning in 2009 and I’m standing beside a monstrous gun at the Imperial War Museum in London. Next to me is my son, nine-year-old Theo, and Jimmy Perry, the creator of Dad’s Army, who is recalling a day in September, 70 years ago.
“I can still remember the day that war was declared,” he tells me. “It was a normal Sunday breakfast in the Perry household. My father was reading the Sunday Express; the headline read: ‘GERMANY INVADES POLAND’. He said, ‘It’s rubbish! Of course there isn’t going to be a war’. When the fateful broadcast came, my sister and I were alone in the house. As soon as Chamberlain had finished, the air-raid sirens started. There we were, two young teenagers, standing with our gas masks ready, waiting to be obliterated.”
Of course, nothing happened. At least, it didn’t until many months later, when the Blitz struck. “Initially, we took refuge in the damp and cold Anderson shelter,” Perry says, “but after that, we took a risk and stayed under the stairs of the house, which was much more comfortable. But then, to avoid the Blitz, we moved to Watford, where I joined the Home Guard, despite my mother’s misgivings that it would be very dangerous: the Nazis had said that they would shoot anyone who they found to be in it . . .”
I’ve grown up in peacetime — it’s almost impossible for me to imagine fighting for my country. I wonder aloud whether I’d be up to it.
The sprightly octogenarian, who has so far been very jolly, full of jokes and humorous anecdotes, looks me very seriously in the eye. He glances fondly but sadly at Theo. Through a window, the monstrous nozzle of a tank points in our direction. “Are you telling me you wouldn’t fight for your boy here? Are you telling me you wouldn’t fight to save the life of his mother, your wife?”
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The urgency of Jimmy’s questions, the intensity of his expression, makes me aware more than any documentary, film or museum exhibition why Britain declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939. “We were fighting for our lives,” Perry says. “We knew what Hitler and the Nazis were like.” As is evident from the famous sitcoms that he created, Perry is an observant, inquisitive 85-year-old and has already gathered that my wife is Jewish. This is certainly one of the reasons why he looks so poignantly at Theo.
Still animated by his memories of the war, he says: “Your son is the reason why you would have fought without question. We knew that the Nazis were killing the Jews. Indeed, it appears that Himmler had a long list of people the Nazis would annihilate once they invaded Britain. Top of their list was the Jewish comic Issy Bonn, and No?l Coward, who they hated for mocking them so savagely.”
Theo doesn’t quite understand the full import of what Perry is saying. For him, the Second World War is the stuff of comedy, not tragedy — and that’s thanks to Perry. Theo is the reason I am talking to the scriptwriter today. He is a devotee of Dad’s Army — able to recite scenes by heart and discourse on Corporal Jones’s war record. He has been desperate to meet the creator of the series for a while. When Jeannette Eccles, a former PA to Perry, heard me extolling the wonders of Dad’s Army on a radio chatshow, she contacted me and put me in touch with her old boss. For Theo, it was a dream come true. As soon as he meets Perry, he is trading anecdotes, talking about sketches in loving detail. Perry is pleased but not surprised. Even though the sitcom’s last episode was made in 1977, it has growing numbers of young fans throughout the world. Indeed, as we were walking around the museum, Perry was approached by a French teenager who thinks that the show is the funniest thing on French TV.
It seemed particularly appropriate for Theo to talk to Perry on the eve of the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War in the Imperial War Museum. The museum is mounting Outbreak 1939, a new special exhibition that will explore the build-up to and preparations for war, an overview of the key events of September 3 and an account of the early months of the conflict. The exhibition is being launched in association with the ITV1 documentary of the same name, to be screened on September 3 at 10.35pm.
“I was 16 when war broke out,” Perry remembers. “I’d had quite a posh upbringing, being the youngest of a family of six and living in the polite suburb of Barnes in southwest London. My father was an antiques dealer and my mother was rather like Mrs Pike, being somewhat over-protective. However, I wasn’t like most teenagers because I was more politically aware than many of them. I wanted to join the International Brigade to fight the fascists in Spain, but unfortunately they didn’t take 13-year-old boys. That was typical of me then: forever dreaming!”
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For Perry most of the war was a time of glorious excitement and fun. Like many boys, he loved being in the Home Guard, which was full of teenagers and old men. He still recounts with laughter how the Captain Mainwaring figure, who ran his platoon, was forever shouting: “No more tomfoolery!” But he adds: “I have to say though, for all our mucking around, we took the whole thing very seriously.”
Perry is very forceful about this point, which is one of the central themes and comic conceits of Dad’s Army. For all their squabbles, the characters in the series are united by their desire to fight the Germans; this is what makes the show ultimately so heartwarming. It is a portrait of Britain coming together in a unique fashion. All the social classes are equally involved. “The war was a great leveller. It didn’t matter what class you were, we were all important.”
Two years after joining the Watford Home Guard and having developed himself as a stand-up comic in various theatres, Perry was sent to Burma with the Royal Artillery, where he joined the Royal Artillery Concert Party.
His experiences performing for the troops in the tropics formed the basis of his sitcom It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum (1974-81) After being demobbed and returning to England, he worked at Butlin’s Holiday Camp; the smash hit sitcom Hi-de-Hi! (1980-88) draws upon his experiences from this time.
At this point in the conversation, Theo pipes up and asks why Perry wrote Dad’s Army. “Hunger! I had to get something to eat!” he jokes. Working as a penniless actor for Joan Littlewood’s Stratford East theatre in the 1960s forced Perry to look for more lucrative ventures.
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A meeting with the producer David Croft led to him commissioning a pilot for Dad’s Army. The rest is history; despite some initially poorly received test screenings,the show was a phenomenal success. It had an aura of magic from the start.
Fate seems to have been at work even with the recording of the famous signature tune. Perry says: “David Croft booked Bud Flanagan, the famous music hall star, to sing the signature tune, Who Do Think You’re Kidding, Mr Hitler? just before he died. It was a song that I wrote and it won the Ivor Novello award for the best television signature tune. Many people still think it’s a genuine wartime song. I take that very much as a compliment.”
Most of Perry’s successful television work was some time ago: his last TV hit was You Rang, M’Lord (1988-93), in which he worked again with David Croft, and drew from his memories of the stories that his grandfather told him about working as a butler.
Recently, though, Perry has enjoyed a renaissance with the publication of his autobiography, A Stupid Boy, in 2002. He participates in some of the numerous events connected with Dad’s Army, which are organised by the Dad’s Army Appreciation Society to meet fans at their conventions.
The show’s admirers include the cream of modern comedy: last year Jonathan Ross hosted a one-off television special to commemorate its 40th anniversary. “The success of Dad’s Army just seems to run and run,” Perry says. “Even now, at my advanced age, I am asked to do things connected with it: I am currently writing a new script for the theatrical version of the show that will be touring the country next year.
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“The show speaks to a whole new generation, largely because the humour is based at a time when the English were the good guys, but the underdogs as well.
“It does worry me, though, that many young people today aren’t interested in the wider issues connected with Europe. For example, I think anyone who lived during the war appreciates the European Union, if only because it’s much better to be trading with each other than blowing each other’s heads off.”
Although my son is too young to understand Perry’s point about the European Union, it appears he appreciates that the world is essentially a better place than in 1939.
“The Germans won’t try to invade us again?” he asks me as we leave the Imperial War Museum. When I reassure him that they won’t, he takes my hand and we walk into the Peace Garden outside the museum, singing the Dad’s Army theme tune to ourselves.
Five ways to teach your child about the war
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1 The Imperial War Museum is putting on events throughout the country at its museums. For more information go to www.iwm.org.uk. Outbreak 1939 will run until August 6, 2010.
2 See two great but little-known war films that Jimmy Perry says captures the spirit of the war at home: The Next of Kin (1942) and Went the Day Well? (1942). The latter film is based on a Graham Greene story and shares much in common with the The Eagle Has Landed (1976).
3 Read Perry’s A Stupid Boy, his darkly humorous memoir about his childhood and war years.
4 Listen to Perry’s favourite songs:The White Cliffs of Dover (Vera Lynn) and That Lovely Weekend (Moira & Ted Heath)
5 Watch some episodes of Dad’s Army or log on to the Dad’s Army Appreciation Society website: www.dadsarmy.co.uk