National Service: From Aldershot to Aden: tales from the conscripts, 1946-62 - Hardcover

Permission to speak, Sah!

In the aftermath of the Second World War, over two million men were conscripted to serve in Britain's armed services. Some were sent abroad and watched their friends die in combat. Others remained in barracks and painted coal white. But despite delivering such varied experiences, National Service helped to shape the outlook of an entire generation of young British males.

To mark the 50th anniversary of the end of National Service, historian Dr Colin Shindler has interviewed ex-conscripts from all backgrounds and ranks, spanning the entire period of peacetime conscription, and captured their memories in this engrossing book. From them, we experience the tension of a postwar Berlin surrounded by Russians, the exotic heat and colour of Tripoli in 1948, the brief but intense flashpoint of the Suez Crisis, and the fear of the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya. But we also hear about the other end of the scale, the conscripts who didn't make it outside the confines of their barracks, or in one case, beyond his home town.

In National Service we see the changing face of British society across these pivotal years, which spans everything from the coronation of Elizabeth II, to the birth of rock 'n' roll, to the beginning of the end of the Empire. The stories within these pages are fascinating. And they deserve to be told before they are lost forever.

"I think the army was the making of 90 per cent of the men who went into it. It taught you to appreciate home and gave you a completely different outlook. If they could do that today there would be no kids hanging around on street corners. It turned me from a boy into a man. National Service was a wonderful thing."

Geoff Rock, 1948-1950 1st Infantry Division, Royal Army Ordinance Corps

"National Service taught you a trade, it taught you discipline, and it taught you how to look after yourself. And everyone still comments on how clean my shoes are."

Joe Trotter, 1954-1956 Royal Army Pay Corps

"I hear people saying, 'Bring back National Service and give the young lads some proper discipline,' but I could have spent two years with dirty underpants as long as there was a crease in my trousers. What sort of discipline is that? Why should the services be saddled with a bunch of hooligans? I think the services were actually relieved when National Service finished."

John Snoad, 1955-1957, RAF Photographer

"I can't say I enjoyed being in the army but it stopped me being an idiot."

Joseph Strode, 1951-53 1st Battalion, The King's Regiment