Like all other parishes, a Local Defence Volunteer unit was set up in Aveton Gifford early on in the war. Formed to defend the area should the Germans invade, it was a very crude affair in the beginning, armed only with personal firearms or pitchforks and with no uniforms.

Later, it was given Winston Churchill's  inspirational name of the Home Guard and members received khaki uniforms with distinctive black gaiters and Lee Enfield rifles. The village schoolmaster, Harold Horton, was made Captain (and later Major), the Landlord of the Commercial Inn, Denis O'Byrne, was made Lieutenant and all men who had served in the Great War became Sergeants.

There was one Corporal, Reg Perring and Percy  Bowden, who owned a motor bike, was the dispatch rider. David Balkwill who was too young at first to be a fully fledged member, was made a runner to carry messages. The whole unit was made up of thirty three men at its peak.
   
They had to learn drill, how to strip and clean a rifle, how to conceal themselves, stalk the enemy and shoot straight. This latter skill was very necessary. Initially they carried out shooting practice near the trunk of Marsh Mills Leat, but when a spent bullet nearly hit someone in Townswell Lane they found safer butts at Kingston.
    

Manoeuvres were carried out from time to time, with one platoon being sent off and the other looking for them, a sort of military hide and seek. It certainly wasn't child's play though, on one occasion bayonets were used to roust out a platoon hiding under some hay in a barn.
    

There was a headquarters hut at the northern end of the town marsh (now Parson's Green) a and a hut out at Harraton, which was manned all night to watch out for parachutists. After the bombing of the village in 1943 they also had to provided a guard at night at the bombed church. After a full day's work this proved too exhausting and Bill Diment one of their number who was a carpenter, was persuaded to carefully remove the timbers that were blocking the safe so that its contents (which were unharmed) could be removed elsewhere.
    

The unit was stood down at the end of the war having made a tremendous unpaid commitment to the defence of the parish. Unfortunately no group photo exists of the Home Guard, but we have one of George Edgcombe in uniform who later joined the navy.