A SHORT film showing the real Home Guard during The Second World War is due to be shown ahead of the regional premiere of Dad's Army in Yorkshire tonight.

The Real Dad's Army is a short film from the vaults of the Yorkshire Film Archive (YFA), based at York St John University, and was shot by an amateur film maker between 1941 and 1944.

Part of a longer film, it tracks the Thornton Home Guard in Bradford from its beginnings as the Local Defence Volunteers or LDV, known locally as the Look, Duck and Vanish, and features an interview with Eddie North, a member of the group.

Mr North recounts his time taking part in drills with wooden rifles and training that was "a bit of a lark for the younger ones", with the troop making do with whatever they had to hand before the right Mr North said: "You’ve got to remember, it was after Dunkirk, and we were back on our heels. We were expecting the enemy to come across. It’s a good job they didn’t, because there wasn’t very much we could have done about it."

The film is shot in colour, which would have been expensive at the time, and the YFA say that not only is it remarkable that it was made in the first place, but also that it has survived the test of time.

The short film is available to view online, and is being shown before the Yorkshire premiere of Dad's Army: The Movie, which takes place in Bridlington tonight.

The new film stars Toby Jones, Bill Nighy, Sir Michael Gambon and Catherine Zeta Jones, and was filmed in locations around Yorkshire, including Bridlington and Pickering, and goes on general release in cinemas from Friday.

For more information on the short film, go to www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com