POPULAR reality TV programme "Bad Lads Army: Extreme" has once again shone the spotlight on the value of National Service. But is this really the way to treat delinquent youths now? Angela Kelly reports.

IF you are a fan of television's weekly series "Bad Lads Army" you will already know a little of what National Service entailed for young men in this country just after the Second World War.

The 2006 TV version focuses on young volunteers aged between 18 and 24 who have gone off the rails and are looking for an opportunity to get their lives back on track.

It asks the simple question: can a short, sharp dose of 1950s military training sort out today's young troublemakers? And the answer, as has already been shown in the previous series, is often "yes."

The lads concerned shoplifters, gang members, graffiti taggers and thieves are dispatched to army barracks and paraded in front of fierce, highly-disciplined, no-nonsense commanding officers before being split into two squads.

Then, over the ensuing weeks, they are expected to compete against each other in a series of mostly physical tests intended to mould their character.

Along the way, of course, they must cope with fairly primitive conditions: 1950s food such as stew, potatoes and peas; cold showers, physical punishment and, all the while, yelling corporals and sergeants determined to improve this orrible lot come hell or high water.

Since it stopped in this country, there have often been calls for a return to National Service as a means of dealing with anti-social behaviour, but would it work on today's errant youths?

Mr Alan Whenlock firmly believes it would. He is secretary of the United Service Veterans Association in Bolton and served in the Royal Signals for 18 years.

"I just missed National Service but I joined up in 1960 because I had no employment and I wanted to be a soldier," explained Mr Whenlock, now 65. "The services gave me a trade and a pension, and I travelled to various parts of the world."

He saw active service in Borneo "nothing like the lads in the First and Second World Wars, of course, but active service nevertheless" and went through the kind of training on view in the TV series.

He is a big fan "It gives me merriment, satisfaction, a whole raft of emotions. It's so good to see those lads changing, some of them even crying for the first time in a long time.

"They get discipline and self-respect, you can see them changing as they become part of a team.

"Would I like to see a return to National Service? If only! When National Service finished, the idiots, the thieves and the vandals emerged. This would certainly sort them out."

Cllr Frank White, an ex-Mayor of Bolton and president of the United Services Veterans Association, is not as sure that all elements of National Service would prove valuable today.

"The pointless parts like painting coal white and grass green would not be useful, but some things like working in a team would," he said.

"There is much to commend what they do in Germany and other Continental countries these days when young people do a year of either National Service or, if they they are conscientious objectors or have political objections, community service in hospitals or in other caring services," he said.

Cllr White felt that people who had been in the services had an identifiable "general attitude".

"They tend to take more responsibility for the community and are prepared to work with others; it sets them apart.

"I think that respect and awareness would be a spin-off from being in the services for youths," he added.

The current "Bad Lads Army" intake is being trained as if for the Parachute Regiment which, as Mr Carlton Wrigley from the Bolton branch of the Parachute Regimental Association explained, is bound to be tough.

He was in the Paras from 1944 to 1950 and explained that there is challenging, extra training for infantry recruits who want to join the still much-respected regiment and wear the famous red berets, "and around 50 per cent fail".

He believes that such training would be very useful to any of today's bad lads, "but would it be fair to force them on the army?" he asked.

"Of course, there are some recruits today who you would call bad lads and the army certainly straightens them out," added Mr Wrigley.

A return to National Service might well be a valuable way forward, he said, "But I don't think there would be the defence budget for it the way they have made cuts".

And it is fair to comment that current thinking on crime and punishment with Good Behaviour Contracts and Anti-Social Behaviour Orders the norm would find the idea of "beasting" young men with physically arduous but pointless tasks and 1950s' cast-iron discipline totally out of step with life in 2006.

Bad Lads Army: Extreme is on ITV1 at 9pm on Tuesday nights.