大象传媒

The storyteller was conscripted to work in the coalmines when he was eighteen years old. He served as an apprentice carpenter in Plymouth before receiving orders to travel by train to Wales.

He arrived at his camp and undertook training at the Oakdale Pit . He contracted rheumatic fever in his first week there and was sent to hospital in Newport and then back to Plymouth for a period of convalescence. He was reassessed by a medical board who sent him back to serve in the mines following a four week training period.

Once assigned to a pit the storeyteller was boarded out with a local Welsh family. His lodgings were good and he was looked after very well.During his three years in the pit he experienced a pit collapse but was fortunate to escape this unscathed. He remembered the singing that went on in the mines at the time. He was invalided out of the pit for a six week period because of an ear condition, a problem that prevented his subsequent enlistment into the Royal Navy. He returned to being a carpenter working in Plymouth repairing war damage.

The storyteller remembered being taken by his mine supervisor to encourage a group of twenty new Bevan Boys who were frightened of working underground. He used a humorous approach to encourage them and this broke the ice. One of the volunteers was in R.A.F. uniform and had a pilot's wings on his uniform. The storyteller discovered he was a pilot that had flown many missions over Europe but had refused a posting to the Japanese theatre preferring to work down the mines rather than continue flying.

The storyteller remembered the recreational activities he was part of in Wales. The mining communities all had their Village Halls and wartime dances were popular. He was taught to dance be the local girls who appreciated that the Bevan Boys tended to be smarter dressers than the local lads! He formed good relationships with the local men. This friendship was put to the test when he attended an England v Wales Football Match in Cardiff. He reckoned that he was the only English spectator in the stadium and felt some what uncomfortable when he cheered a Tommy Lawton goal!

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