Andy Chatterton

So a 15-year-old was being taught, and he used some very specific terminology here.

He was being taught, he said, by terrifying ex-First World War NCOs how to be a sniper.

Peter was 15.

But as a father, that is a terrifying prospect.

And his parents had no idea what he was up to.

Correct, absolutely.

And a lot of what Peter said there, you can take with a pinch of salt because it's one guy telling you.

But then as I wrote the book, families from Southampton and Leicestershire were telling me exactly the same stories about their grandfathers in this case,

being taught by terrifying NCOs using very similar terminology.

And then just before I published, a family got in touch whose grandfather, William Hughes, was a sharpshooter during the First World War.

And he said in Liverpool, he was teaching resistors, and he used the word teenagers, in unarmed combat and how to be snipers in the tunnels underneath the Mersey.

So suddenly, one man's story is then confirmed by multiple other independent stories across the country.

But you're right, it wasn't just men and boys being recruited.

And this is a key difference with Section 7 and SIS, that they were actively recruiting women in combat roles and teaching them how to use explosives, how to create Molotov cocktails, how to derail trains, and most importantly, how to become honey traps, how to use the garotte.

And I know that you've had podcasts here talking about some Dutch women who were famous or infamous for their roles in dispatching German officers and German soldiers.

Exactly the same was being done here in preparation for an occupation.

So there's a fantastic example.

A lady called Jennifer Lockley got in touch with us saying that her mother was in the auxiliary units.

We know that.

And she was from near Leeds.