Home Guard Proficiency Certificate

Issued 27 June 1944 by the 40th City of London (G.L.C. Co.) Bn., Home Guard, L Regiment. There are many references in my father's diaries to ARP duty, Home Guard duty, and machine gun training (practice in assembly, firing, stripping, and theory) from 1942-1944. His diaries record days off for works duty (he worked at Southall Gas Works) and ARP weekends, after which he received a 1s 6d subsistence allowance from Bisley. They also record a joint exercise with the 10th Middlesex in 1944, describing "the usual muddle" when "12 hours Home Guard" started in February 1942, anti-gas drill, and a Home Guard exercise called BLAST on 30 January 1944. After that, it mainly seems to be overnight telephone duty from 8 pm to 6 am, then back to work that morning. There doesn't seem to be the same demarcation between the Home Guard and the ARP as there was in Dad's Army. My father seems to have been involved in both.