A SHORT film featuring the Thornton Home Guard during World War II will be shown ahead of the regional premiere of the new Dad's Army movie tonight.

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

Part of a longer film, it tracks the Home Guard in Bradford from its beginnings as the Local Defence Volunteers (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 short film will be shown before the Yorkshire premiere of Dad's Army: The Movie, in Bridlington.

The new film stars Toby Jones, Bill Nighy, Sir Michael Gambon and Catherine Zeta Jones, and was filmed around the county.