[West Ender]

I've enjoyed the previous series but, being a contemporary of National Servicemen, having married an airman who joined up in 1959 and having an elder brother who did National Service in the army, I am pretty sure the experience of these lads is nowhere near as tough as the real thing used to be. I've seen them answer back NCOs who just.....let them. I've seen NCOs looking helpless in the face of insubordination. If my friends, my husband and my brother were to be believed, you got away with absolutely nothing on the parade ground (or off it, come to that).

Of course, these lads are there voluntarily, the army can't legally stop them if they decide to walk away. It's a good show and it gives them a taste of the discipline they're lacking but that's all it is, a show. The real thing might make a difference to them, it sometimes did in the past, but it's not real - it's just "reality" TV.