In 1970, 10 years on from the last National Service callup, long hair and less discipline were the order of the day. Cold War tension continued but, on the home front, three in five adults favoured the return of National Service. The last callup was remembered as having straightened out the ‘non-conforming elements’, wrote Alan Road in the Observer on 18 November 1970, serving as ‘a kind of vast borstal institution for those whose only crime was youth’.
