Private Frank Pike

Private Frank Pike is a fictional Home Guard platoon member and junior bank clerk portrayed by Ian Lavender in the BBC television sitcom Dad's Army. He is constantly referred to by Captain Mainwaring as "stupid boy".

Personality

At the age of 17, Pike is the youngest member of the Walmington-on-Sea platoon. He is not yet old enough for the regular army (although when about to receive his calling-up papers in "When You've Got To Go", it is revealed that he possesses a rare blood-type that excludes him from military service). He is constantly living in the shadow of his bossy and over-protective mother, Mavis Pike, who is in a relationship with Sergeant Arthur Wilson, referred to as "Uncle Arthur" by Pike, and who is often hinted to be Pike's father, although the circumstances surrounding this situation are kept purposely vague. If so, he also has an older half-sister from Wilson's first marriage. Although Mrs. Pike is frequently described as a widow, we are never told how long ago her husband died or whether the couple became estranged while he was still alive, so it is not known whether the late Mr Pike was also a claimant to Frank's paternity. However, in interviews with Jimmy Perry and David Croft after the series had finished, they confirmed Wilson was Pike's father. This was kept quiet, along with Wilsons daughter as at the time divorcees and children born to unmarried parents were looked down upon. It is common for Pike to threaten to set his mum on either Captain George Mainwaring, his commanding officer, or Sergeant Wilson if he is shouted at or forced to do something he would rather not do. Although naive, Pike is clearly aware something is going on with his mother and Sergeant Wilson:

Pike: "By the time we finish supper, it's so late, you never leave our house until after I've gone to bed and you're back early for breakfast before I'm awake.But what I don't understand is that I never hear you leave at night and I never hear you come back in."

Wilson: "I let myself in and out very quietly"

Pike: "You never do anything else quietly!"

Despite being in his teens and verging on manhood, Pike is very naive and often acts childishly, possessing quite a limited grasp of adult issues. He is frequently found with confectionery and sweets, is greatly upset in one episode to leave a cinema early because he had "missed the Donald Duck" and can be quite insolent and petulant to his superiors and elders in the platoon. This annoys Captain Mainwaring in particular, who frequently refers to him as a "stupid boy", due to his general carelessness and foolish mistakes. For all his irritation at Pike's childish attitude, however, this does not stop Mainwaring himself from repeatedly treating Pike as a child, often threatening to send him home from platoon meetings if he does not behave himself. Pike is also frequently treated as something of a dogsbody by Mainwaring, who has a habit of repeatedly and casually ordering Pike to undertake tasks that are either quite menial and demeaning, or can pose genuine risks to Pike's health and / or dignity, justifying this by his refusal to 'mollycoddle' Pike (regardless of how genuine the danger or risk to Pike that his orders will have actually is); as a result, Pike frequently ends up wet, covered in mud or otherwise humiliated by Mainwaring's various plans. In the episode Things that Go Bump in the Night, he was stripped naked several times and had to run naked through a field to escape wild dogs.

Although at times Pike is able to come up with the most sensible ideas and solutions to problems encountered by the platoon, he more often than not treats "everything as if it's a game", to quote Mainwaring (in the episode "All is Safely Gathered In"). Notably, in the famous episode "The Deadly Attachment", Pike was put on an ominous 'list' by a German U-Boat captain due to Mainwaring's incompetence at preventing the German from learning Pike's name ("Don't tell him, Pike!"), thus spelling his doom should the Germans have been successful in the war; however, as Pike had unwisely chosen to sing a childish song about Adolf Hitler's sanity right in front of this officer, it is largely his own fault in refusing to take the situation seriously that he found himself in that position to begin with. He is not inclined to take the war seriously, and would rather play at being a Chicago gangster with the platoon's supply of grenades or Tommy gun. Whilst he normally exasperates Mainwaring, however, he is more often humoured by the other members of the platoon (particularly Lance Corporal Jack Jones, Private Charles Godfrey and Private Joe Walker), who take him under their wings in many ways. Strangely enough Pike one of the most timid members of the group (just behind Godfrey who is an official non-combatant) he is the first one to fire his weapon on a suspected enemy in the entire show (The Enemy Within The Gates) even though it turned out to be a swan.

Pike appears to be a rather sickly and unhealthy young man. An army doctor proclaimed him healthy when he received his calling up papers, though it then appears that he has a rare blood-type that excludes him from military service. But most of his 'illnesses' seem to stem from his mother's over-protectiveness rather than from any genuine malaise. All year round Pike wears a scarf, usually a claret and blue striped one, though it does not camouflage at all with the Home Guard uniform. This is apparently because it prevents him from getting croup, even though only infants and children under age 6 and, apparently, chickens are supposed to get that disease ("Menace from the Deep").

Pike is a keen fan of the cinema, and always ready to relate the plots of films that he has seen at the cinema which relate to the platoon's activity at that moment, even if the relationship is hazy at best. When the film example does mirror reality, however, he has a tendency to pick scenarios which end in death for the film participants. For instance, in "Asleep in the Deep", the platoon are about to draw lots as to who will be at the head of a rubble clearing party, and he relates to Sgt. Wilson where this is done in a film and the Sergeant is chosen.

Despite being far from stupid, Pike is in the habit of making utterly pointless comments in attempting to be of assistance to the platoon; this is best illustrated by the following quotation, taken from the episode "Absent Friends":

(Jones, Mainwaring, Pike and Wilson are searching for an escaped convict, with the apparent help of the police.)

Jones: "Perhaps they're hidin' behind the bushes, sir. They do a lot of hidin behind bushes, do policemen. 'Specially when they're knockin' people off." Mainwaring: "I don't think that's very likely, Jones." Pike: "In that film, "Public Enemy Number One", they hid behind cars. But there aren't any here."

Pike's name is a reference to the spear-like weapons issued to the Home Guard in 1942, generating 'an almost universal feeling of anger and disgust from the ranks'.^[1]

Ian Lavender was invited to choose Pike's scarf from a selection in the BBC costume department. As a supporter of Aston Villa F.C., Lavender chose the claret and blue scarf as those are the team's colours.

References