Janet King

Miss Janet King, played by Caroline Dowdeswell, was a junior clerk in the Walmington-on-Sea branch of Swallow Bank in the first series (1968) of the BBC TV comedy series Dad's Army, set during the Second World War.

Janet King was a bubbly blonde whose character, according to the series' creator David Croft, was introduced at a fairly late stage in the scripting because the BBC's head of comdedy Michael Mills believed that the programme, about a group of mostly elderly men who volunteered for service in the Home Guard, needed a "soupçon of sex" (Graham McCann (2001) Dad's Army). Miss King appeared in five episodes, including the first, in which, on 14 May 1940, she advised the manager of the bank, George Mainwaring (Arthur Lowe), that the Secretary for War, Anthony Eden, was about to make a wireless broadcast announcing the creation of the Local Defence Volunteers (later the Home Guard). Mainwaring promptly appointed himself captain of the Walmington LDV.

Despite the very minor and comparatively short-lived nature of her part, Janet King was virtually the only young women to have a recurring role in the series. Others (such as Sergeant Wilson's daughter, Private Walker's girl-friend, the financée of Private Pike - Miss King's male contemporary in the bank - and assorted waitresses, land girls and service personnel, usually flattered by Wilson for the prettiness or smartness of their outfits) were essentially brought on to support the story-line of particular episodes.