Duckers & Diving: Don’t Panic Pitchford
OUR witty writer returns ready to spike the guns of Birmingham’s great and good and begins his 2013 salvo with a volley against businessman Glyn Pitchford.
They don’t like it up ‘em; they do not like it up ‘em – especially when Birmingham businessman Glyn Pitchford is metaphorically wielding the bayonet by playing Dad’s Army games.
All a bit of a throwback to World War II, his upbringing in Sheffield and his dad, who really was in the Home Guard.
Indeed in Pitchford’s entertaining autobiography Journey to Majorca – he has a holiday home on the island – he recalls: “Dad was not allowed to enlist. He had to continue working in a factory, making parts of aircraft engines for Wellington bombers.
“At the end of each 12-hour shift he would double as a Home Guard, patrolling around the Edgar Allen Steelworks. The platoon was required to share five rifles between 12 men – none of which had any ammunition, dad told me much later with a cheeky grin! It was a good job the Germans didn’t invade!”
So guess what happened the other week?
“Couldn’t resist popping into Oxfam – they had a 1941 (re-printed) book on the Home Guard, with an instruction manual probably aimed at my dad,” Glyn tells me.
“So I got it out of their window, paid £2.49 and am now reciting to my grandson Jack such passages as to how to stalk the enemy, lay down an ambush, strip a gun and make Molotov cocktails … good boy’s own stuff!
“Thinking of using this knowledge when out stalking the goats next summer in Majorca with the kids!”
Good grief – let’s hope that’s all he uses it for.
I fear for the residents of Solihull should Lance Cpl Pitchford run amok!
