Stand by your beds! - David F Clark

The first and last chapters of the book outline the setting and nature of National Service between the years of 1948 and 1963 and comment on some of its effects on the two million young men who, reluctantly or otherwise, went through it. This is a part of our social history which has been dealt with at a fictional level by Arnold Wesker, David Lodge and Leslie Thomas but, prior to this book, there has been relatively little written of a factual nature other than Trevor Royle's 'The Best Years of Their Lives' and perhaps two or three other little know texts. The other chapters of 'Stand by Your Beds!' use the author's own experience in the RAF to illustrate, often with wry humour and sometimes with a degree of quiet drama, some of the boring, stressful, whimsical, ludicrous and exciting events that were packed into these two years. The subtle changes from resentment to enthusiasm in some who served their time, and the reverse process in others, are pointed up by the recounting of episodes which actually happened.;These will surely echo for many other National Servicemen their own experience and convey to their children and grandchildren something of the flavour, activities and attitudes that filled those two compulsorily 'stolen' years of their lives.