Home Guard
On 14 May 1940 the Secretary of State for War, Anthony Eden, broadcast an appeal
on the B.B.C. Home Service for men aged between 17 and 65 to join the Local Defence
Volunteers (L.D.V.) which was being formed. There was no shortage of men who wished
to join the L.D.V. and a number of companies were established in East Lothian, including
those at North Berwick, Aberlady, Broxbum and Macmerry. By the 15th, 100 men had
volunteered at North Berwick and 15 in Gullane; by a week later the numbers had risen
to 142 in North Berwick and 100 in Gullane. In fact the number of men who came forward
meant that it was equipment and weapons which were in short supply, not volunteers,
it being mid June 1940 before uniforms became available. What weapons were available
in the period following Dunkirk were in extremely short supply, but First World War
rifles from the United States helped the motley collection of broom handles, pitch
forks and antique hand-
Officially renamed the Home Guard on 23 July 1940, following a speech by Winston Churchill in which he referred to them by that name, much criticism has been directed at the L.D.V. regarding their usefulness. Probably due to the popular view of the Home Guard as bumbling fools which has resulted from the B.B.C. TV. series Dad's Army, it has been claimed that had the German Army invaded Britain, the Home Guard would have been of little use and would have been decimated by the superior numbers and firepower of the invaders.
However, closer study of the Home Guard reveals that it is unlikely that they would
have been as ineffective as it might appear. In particular, the members of the Home
Guard knew the local countryside -
The use of such static defences would have been made more effective with the arrival
from late 1940 of more and better weapons, such as Lewis machine-
Prepared for an invasion that never came, much of the time spent by the members of
the Home Guard was taken up with training. Such training required hard work and enthusiasm,
both of which were in apparently plentiful supply. In September 1941 members of the
1st Battalion, East Lothian Home Guard, from Gullane, Dirleton and Aberlady held
a weekend camp at the Hopes, near Gifford. Within a short space of time from their
arrival in army trucks on the Saturday afternoon, tents had been erected, pits dug,
a cook-
Mrs. Mary Stenhouse, a schoolchild living in the valley now occupied by the Whiteadder Reservoir, recalls:
"The War Office decided we should have a branch of the Home Guard in the glen, so
the Marquis of Tweeddale came as commander or whatever to organise the men. One young
man had a motorbike so he was immediately elected dispatch-
One older gentleman was stationed beside the one telephone in the glen. Early one Sunday morning his grandson came knocking at the window saying the invasion was expected any moment, whereby my father and the young shepherd who lodged with us went back to bed till their normal rising time. My father and the old gamekeeper with the one gun were to go on watch on Priestlaw Hill at 11.00 a.m., so after a quiet wander up the hill, they lay down in the shelter of a stone wall and lit their pipes to await the call to arms. An old cock grouse landed on the wall and perched there looking about, so the old man pointed the gun saying, "Man, John, what a grand shot that would be," at which my father told him not to fire or the whole of the south of Scotland would think the invasion had begun!"
Stand down of the Home Guard finally came on Sunday 3 December 1944, with the need
for a home defence clearly past. That day the East Lothian Battalion Home Guard held
Stand Down parades. 'D' Company from Gullane were inspected by Colonel D. H. McCririck,
Lothian and Borders Sub-