We’re really pleased to announce that the fantastic Time Bandits are back!

Come and join the amazing Time Bandits as they bring history alive with stories of the Home Guard and the North East during the Second World War.

“Dad’s Army does contain a great deal of truth: the muddling amateurishness, chronic shortages of weapons and equipment, Heath Robinson hardware and wide divergence of personal backgrounds all strike a factual chord. But the Home Guard remains affectionately risible because it was never tested. Those who fought alongside worker’s militias in Spain had witnessed a very different reality. In the event of an actual German invasion, the Volunteers of 1940 would have been expected to fight and almost certainly they would.

A memorable scene from the TV series features Mannering’s ill-assorted heroes manning a makeshift barricade, doling out their few shotgun cartridges and awaiting German tanks. Obviously, these never came; had they done so the results would have been swift, brutal and anything but comic.

If one tours the north-east coast and inland, evidence abounds: Northumbrian beaches are studded with tank traps, concrete and steel gun emplacements, pillboxes and some superbly restored batteries, particularly Blyth and Hartlepool. The latter did indeed see active service in the previous war: in the battle of December 1914 when the part-time gunners fought a good fight against marauding German battle-cruisers, a dozen British soldiers died, as did 80-odd civilians in the town, which was shattered by the bombardment; needless to say, this is not the stuff of comedy!

In quiet Northumbrian lanes and in most unexpected places one comes across further emplacements, seemingly in the most random pattern. These are, in fact, traces of the various ‘stop’ lines set up as a defence in depth against invasion.

It was anticipated the Home Guard would be charged with resisting the initial onslaught on the beaches then holding a series of fall-back positions to blunt the overall attack till a successful counter-attack could be launched. Most would have died or been captured. We aim to tell their story”.