Gurkha's Champion Lumley calls 'National Service'

London : Joanna Lumley wants to create a ‘Jo’s Army’ to instil a sense of discipline and pride in troubled teenagers. The Absolutely Fabulous star, who famously campaigned for the rights of Gurkha soldiers, believes her ‘legal gangs’ would be a modern version of National Service. ‘There are all these fit, strong young men who are bursting with physical energy but have no place to use it,’ she told The Mail on Sunday. ‘Often they have nothing to do with their energy but get into trouble and do drugs, or carry knives and hurt people. They don’t really want to do that but have no other way of being a young man.’ Under her proposals, boys would be put into squads headed by ‘strong leaders’ and given challenges and targets. 

The 67-year-old said her ‘gangs’ would give boys the same sense of belonging as violent street gangs but in a safe and useful context. ‘It would be a bit like Challenge Anneka,’ she added, referring to the BBC TV programme in which Anneka Rice was given tasks to accomplish within a certain period of time. ‘I’m painting with a very broad brush about a thin strand of society, but when we threw out National Service we lost something quite valuable, though I understand people hating the idea of having to go into the Army. I don’t think we really offer these boys much when they leave school. Read more: 

'If they don’t get a job, what are they to do? To join a sports club, to try golf or sailing or tennis all costs money. ‘I think it would be so nice to scoop up dispossessed boys and let them form their own sort of disciplines. 'It’s about the pleasure at being good at stuff. If you get things done, you feel proud. This is muscly boys’ stuff.’ National Service was discontinued in the UK in 1960, with the last conscripts leaving the service in 1963.

 Speaking during a trip to Bangladesh for sight-saving charity Seeing Is Believing, Ms Lumley added: ‘They shouldn’t be allowed to just drop off or pitch up when feel like it. There’s something about the rigours of life. That’s the name of the game. People have got to learn that you’ve got to see it through. ‘As an actor I’ve got to be on stage dressed up ready with my lines at 8 o’clock – you’ve got to do it. Life is real and earnest and you’ve got to learn how to do it. You can’t be late and you can’t renege on it.’