大象传媒

One of the Bevin Boys
account about Cyril Coombes

At the end of 1943 Ernest Bevin, the Minister of Labour in Churchill's war time government, decreed that ten per cent of all conscripts registering for military service should be sent down Britain's deep coal mines to work underground because the country was desperately short of coal. Cyril was among 21,800 balloted to serve our country in this way and they were known as the Bevin Boys.

Having spent three years in the Salisbury Sea Cadets, Cyril thought he would be joining the navy but in 1944 at the age of eighteen he was sent off for a month to a training pit in Ystrad Mynach, South Wales, under the watchful eye of a Sergeant Major. He was allowed to choose where he went from there and as an aunt of his lived in Port Talbot, he chose a mine in Cymer and later transferred to one in Glyncorrwg. Although his mother was upset that he was going down the mines (she feared a pit disaster) and not into one of the services, Cyril saw it as something different and decided to make the best of it.
Along with three other young men he lodged with a woman who was already looking after two little girl evacuees. At the end of a day down the mine the four men would struggle to wash themselves in shared water in a tin bath in front of tile fire while the woman of the house came and went getting their supper. They never managed to get the coal grime out of their skin entirely and their eyebrows and eyelashes remained coated in coal-dust until they got down to removing it with vaseline. - "just like mascara" Cyril chuckles!

There were two shafts to the mines - one was the entrance in which the lift operated and the other housed a huge fan which was used to circulate air from one shaft through the mine and out through the other shaft. If the fan had stopped, there would have been very little time for the men to get out from underground before the build-up of methane gas overpowered them.

Cyril worked in coal seams from two and a half feet up to fourteen and a half feet . Although it must have been
extremely hard work under primitive conditions (no machinery just picks }he does not complain - indeed he makes it sound almost enjoyable, but he was obviously aware that he was doing his best for the war effort. Just as many men speak of the great feeling of comradeship that prevailed in the services during the War. Cyril also assures us that the same type of friendships were formed in the mines.

Cyril speaks with nostalgia of that time and recalls how one of his work mates was taking a nap underground when a huge piece of coal fell on top of him knocking him unconscious. Using his knowledge of first aid, Cyril tended his friend and his conditions soon changed for the better. This friend was Welsh and lived with his mother and Cyril was invited to live with them. From then on he got a bath at the pit-head instead of in front of the fire and was much happier living with his friend's family

Men worked in pairs, an experienced collier and a boy assistant collier. Only the collier received a wage packet at the end of the week and he would have to hand over a basic wage to the boy but would pay a few extra shillings if they had done well. Initially Cyril earned just 拢3 a week. He soon found himself earning a lot more when he was paired of with the best collier in the mine at Glycorrwg. They even won prizes for the amount of coal they hewed. Eventually, the collier told Cyril that he wanted to return to farming and was hoping to get silicosis and if he did not he would cut off his finger so he could get out of the mines. The former was his fate and he went happily off to farm. Cyril put in a request to take over as collier and was given the job and had his own assistant boy collier. Before he left the mines, the system of payment had changed and he was earning between eight and fifteen pounds a week which was a fortune in those days.

It was not all hard work and no play. The boys would go off to dances and like all young men had fun with the girls. One of the girls was to become his future wife, Glenys (of the delicious Welsh cakes fame!).

Although Cyril was conscripted to work three years down the mine, he volunteered for two more and then in 1949 he married Glenys and moved back to England. The young man whom Cyril had tended when the lump of coal had fallen on him was their best man and they still remain friend. Later two sons and a daughter arrived and Cyril and his father ran a shoe shop in Wilton . Sadly, Cyril's wife Glenys has died and Cyril still owns and runs his shoe shop in Tisbury.

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