Bevin Boys

Adrian Roberts · Mar 26, 2008

Have we had a thread on the Bevin Boys?

A vital part of the British war effort. If we had been young men in the 1940's, then however much we may have wanted to serve in combat in the RAF, or Navy or Army, the fact is that we would had a one in ten chance of been sent down the mines instead. And stigmatised as "conchies" .

Of course, they had a better chance of surviving the war than those in say, Bomber Command, and I daresay with hindsight many of them are grateful for that now, but most young men wouldn't have thought that way at the time.

(From the Daily Telegraph)

They dreamt of fighting for Britain in the skies and on the battlefields of Europe, but the Bevin Boys, as they were known, were subjected instead to a crude lottery and sent underground to mine for coal.

They were the misfits of the Second World War, never recognised as servicemen, often stigmatised as conscientious objectors and refused a war pension.

Yesterday's belated honour to commemorate the "forgotten secret army" ends a long campaign for recognition and reveals the startling unfairness of a system that forced them, by ballot, into rough, dangerous work in the pits, even though many, such as Sir Jimmy Savile, had trained for the services. [For the non-Brits, Jimmy Savile was one of the early Radio DJs, playing "pop music" in the '60s, and a TV personality]
Regardless of their ambition or aptitude, 48,000 young men were conscripted to work down the mines by the arbitrary expedient of pulling their National Service registration numbers out of a bowler hat.

"At the end of my five years with the Air Training Corps I could recognise every aircraft in the sky but I found myself working hundreds of feet underground," says Sir Jimmy, now 81, He was unusual: he liked the work. Many Bevin Boys nursed a deep sense of grievance, compounded by their shabby treatment after the war.

While the civilian defence medal was awarded to police, fire, ambulance and even WRVS workers at the end of the war, they received nothing. It was 50 years before they were even allowed to march to the Cenotaph with other veterans on Remembrance Day.

The Bevin Boys were a panic measure to cover an official blunder. Young miners had either been called up or gone to work in munitions factories for better pay because the Government had failed to make mining a reserved occupation.

So, by 1943, with the country running out of coal to keep the factories in full production, miners were an ageing, depleted, strike-prone bunch.

In December, Ernest Bevin, the minister for labour, devised a ballot scheme whereby men aged between 18 and 25 would be picked off for work in the mines as they registered for National Service.

They were selected every fortnight, according to the last digit of their registration number. The penalty for non-compliance was a heavy fine or three months' imprisonment under the Emergency Powers Act.

For 18 months, 21,800 men were conscripted in this way and the remainder opted to join, but the scheme was hugely unpopular. When Bevin was asked whether young recruits could have a psychological examination to see if they were temperamentally suited to coalmining, he replied simply: "No."

Warwick Taylor, 81, the vice-president of the Bevin Boys Association and long-time campaigner, had trained with the ATS, like Savile, and was a fully qualified radio operator when he was sent to a colliery in South Wales just before his 18th birthday.

He lived in a Nissen hut - freezing in winter, stifling in summer - and worked underground on conveyor belts, keeping the walkways clear of coal spillage.

"I was devastated by being sent down," he recalls. "All my buddies were going into the RAF. We appealed. But it was no good. It just fell on deaf ears. The descent into the lift that took you into the mine was known as the initiation drop and none of us will ever forget it. You went into the cage with trepidation. It was supposed to descend at 30ft per second, but they let it go at 70ft per second. It was supposed to be a bit of fun, but the pressure on the eardrums was intense. The mine was nearly 3,000ft deep and, at the bottom, you were completely disorientated. Some of the lads got nosebleeds on the way down. Most of us couldn't wait to get out."

Taylor, author of The Forgotten Conscript, says the Bevin Boys were unfairly dismissed as draft dodgers, deserters or conscientious objectors throughout the war. People called them cowards and put white feathers in their hats. They were often billeted with mining families whose own sons had joined the Services and who suspected that they would stay on and steal their jobs.

"Understandably, the Bevin Boy was looked upon with suspicion by regular miners. They were suddenly faced with this invasion of young, inexperienced men who had never got their hands dirty in their lives and were forced into an industry where they had no wish to be," he says.

Welsh-speaking miners would often refuse to talk to Bevin Boys in English or would make them work with pit ponies that only understood orders given in Welsh. Those in digs with mining families would be last in the queue for the tin bath.

Barry Ainsworth worked in a South Yorkshire colliery and recalled having to provide his own tools made from bits of wood and scrap iron. "It was dangerous, dark, dirty, greasy. When I entered the mines, a lot of my friends thought I was a conscientious objector. Definitely not. We wanted to fight for our country in the Armed Forces, but were chosen to do something closer to home.

"After the war, when the other Service personnel were recognised for their war effort, we got neither uniforms nor medals. We just disappeared." Victor Wheale described his two years in the Mexborough mine, South Yorks, as "the worst and most dangerous conditions I could ever have imagined". He was a carpenter from Brighton who loved the open air and he had tried to enrol as an airman.

Instead, he found himself working a mile underground, in rat-infested tunnels with unsafe machinery. "Often we worked in the pitch dark after power failures, struggling to carry on by the light of a Davis lamp," he wrote on the BBC's WW2 People's War website. "Many men were injured, sometimes fatally."

No account was taken of whether the men were suited to the work. Geoffrey Rose, from Fakenham, Norfolk, was accepted by the Royal Navy in January, 1944, but three days later was directed to report to Doncaster colliery.

He appealed, claiming that he lived in agricultural country at least 100 miles from any coal mine, but lost his case. The alternative was prison. "Some Bevin Boys did choose prison," he said. "It was a complete change of life. We worked in the depth of the earth in cramped, damp conditions. Travelling on leave, we were not even allowed a cup of tea on the train because we had no uniform. Some Bevin Boys were much abused because it was thought we had run away from the Services."

Some of the men were psychologically scarred by their experiences. Maurice Sheppard, of Durham, recalled: "In 11 months in the mines I lost three stone in weight. I was sent home to see a specialist and diagnosed with 'inward claustrophobia'."

He was given a special boot allowance because his boots rotted away so quickly in the wet pit, and his digs were so damp that his clothes acquired a green mould.

Jimmy Savile, who went to the South Kirby mine in Yorkshire, admits he was " very peculiar" in having adapted so well. Most of his comrades were appalled by the conditions. Ronald Griffan, a Birmingham boy, was balloted in 1944 and sent to a pit at Newport.

"Each day down the mine got worse," he recalled. "The stale air caused a burning sensation in my lungs and the heat and heavy work drained all my strength away. One morning, I was heaving coal on to the conveyor when something told me to move my position. A split second later, there was a tremendous crash followed by clouds of grey dust and a great pile of rubble. Almost a goner."

If a Bevin Boy was killed in a mining accident his family received no compensation and those invalided out had no pension. Some were not demobilised until 1948 because the country was still short of coal.

In 1998, they were represented for the first time at the Cenotaph but the badge awarded by Gordon Brown yesterday - featuring a pithead and a profile of a miner - is the first tangible sign of a nation's appreciation.

"This is wonderful news for a brave group of men who have been forgotten and shelved for years," says Taylor. "We have finally surfaced in the national consciousness. My boys are delighted. This has been a long struggle on behalf of a very under-appreciated group of men. The one disappointment for some families is that the badge will go only to survivors. I will encourage them to wear it in public and to be proud."
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Kyt · Mar 26, 2008

Cheers Adrian. I know very little about the lads who were sent down the mines. I'd heard that they were assigned it as a "service", but little else.

The Association deserves a mention:

Bevin Boys Association - 24 Hour Museum - official guide to UK museums, galleries, exhibitions and heritage

and one of the 'Boys'
BBC NEWS | UK | 'Rough, tough' life of a Bevin Boy

Antipodean Andy · Mar 26, 2008

Bloody hell.

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