大象传媒

During the early years of the war; the bombing over Birmingham was heavy. Night after night the air raid warnings sounded and people took to their 鈥淎nderson Shelters鈥�. In our case at home; it was down the cellar in which I used to show my amateur films. Sometimes we would brave the bombs and stand out in the street and watch the flares and tracer bullets shooting across the sky like fireworks. Then hear the bomb exploding thinking someone has lost their life. One night the bombings was very heavy and the local gasometer a mile away had been hit and a huge flame some fifty feet high flared from its top. To me it was an awe inspiring sight, but many were terrified for fear we were all going to be blown to pieces. They fled through the streets in panic not knowing where to run. My father tried to calm people by telling them that it eventually would burn itself out and of course it did. Little did we know it at the time but we could have been blown into eternity. One morning after a heavy raid I was cycling to work and about to pass the council house Smethwick, when I was stopped by wardens and told to divert my route, a land mine had landed with its parachute caught in some telegraph wires. When I reached my place of work I told May what had happened and she did not believe me. However returning home that night the mine had been dismantled and left to fall making a hole in the pavement. Had it have gone off it would have wiped out several streets including our own.
One afternoon May and myself were at our bench and sirens had just gone off , as we faced the Bearwood road everything seemed normal ,then out of nowhere a German plane came flying low down along the main road. We both ducked as it began firing bullets and dived underneath our benches. Then the plane made off firing again at the old market, the holes are there to this day.

In 1944 I received my call up papers much to the dismay of my boss Dick Small. He got onto the authorities to try and get me exempt from call up, pleading I was employed on important war work. He also told them I was in a play which funds were for war charities. To my surprise I was given an exemption until the play had finished its run.
In 1943 the government had panicked because the country had become very short of coal. Young miners had either been called up or gone to work in munitions factories for better pay. Emergency meetings were called in the House and Ernest Bevin then Minister of Labour put a proposal that a ballot to be drawn conscripting those boys with a certain letter after their name be called up for the mines. They became known as Bevin Boys of which I was about to become one. In May 1944 I travelled to Newport Monmouthshire. A packed train dropped me at Blackwood station where I met up with other Bevin Boys and taken to a special hostel for training. We were housed in old army huts the long dormitories our sleeping accommodation for the next four weeks. Lads and men had been recruited from all over the country. Most good humoured and jolly, so I felt I was in for a happy time. With meagre rations at home, it was a treat to have a cooked breakfast and a nice evening meal at the hostel. During the mornings we had lectures from people from the pit management and in the afternoons we did manual work such as stripping bark from pit props. To break us in we visited other pits in the area of Newport and Oakdale.

Each day down the mine got worse I found it hard to adapt to the conditions. 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 working away heaving coal onto the conveyer. When something told to move my position. Lunging forward feeling something was about to happen I almost fell over a split second later there was a tremendous crash followed by clouds of grey dust and a great pile of rubble. Almost a goner I could have been underneath it. I secretly wrote to other collieries in the midlands hoping they would accept me on a transfer I received only one reply from the Earl of Dudley鈥檚 Baggeridge Colliery near Wolverhampton. They would accept me provided I got permission from my local National Service Officer. I wrote to him and was granted an interview at his office at Port Talbot. One afternoon returning to my digs I saw a small buff envelope propped up against the salt cruet on opening a card filled in by bold writing fell into my hand. It informed me my transfer to the midland mine had been granted and that my new duties at Baggeridge to commence the following Monday.

I was there till the war ended but had to carry on in the mine waiting for a demob number to be issued to us Bevin Boys. The government having forced us 鈥渂oys鈥� into the mines in 1943 turned a deaf ear when it came to releasing us as they were still very short of coal. One minister was heard to say 鈥淥 Bevin Boys鈥� they are not worth bothering about. However I was finally given my release number but not until October 1948 three years after the war.

On October 3鈥� 1948 I went down the pit for the last time. After the shift I had to collect my cards and see the manager. He was very friendly and asked me to stay on Yo鈥� bin a good worker鈥� he said and we all thought the world of you鈥� I was puzzled I had never seen him under ground but he must have known everyone and what was going on.
I thanked for the offer but I had my own plans I had been offered a scholarship as a full time student at the Birmingham Drama School, Queens College. He wished me luck and I came away exhilarated although with a tinge of sadness. I had worked with some fine men in the mines with a world of their own creating an atmosphere of comradeship, jollity and sense of well being. The like of which I never have experienced again.
Ronald Griffin.

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