大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Morwenna Nadar of CSV/大象传媒 LONDON on behalf of Warwick Taylor, MBE, the Vice President of The Bevin Boys鈥� Association and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

When registering for National Service in July 1944, just prior to my 18th birthday, I was informed that I had been selected by ballot for service as a Bevin Boy in the coal mining industry. 鈥楤evin Boys鈥� was the name given to the youngsters who were sent to the mines instead of to the various armed services, and was the brain-wave of the then Minister of Labour and National Service, Ernest Bevin. In 1943 there was only 3 weeks supply of coal left and, as a very large number of miners were serving in the forces, the government had a big problem as 50,000 men were urgently needed to keep the mines going. Ernest Bevin came up with the idea that every 2 weeks there would be a draw and 1 in 10 of the young men being called up would be allocated to the mines. This soon changed to 1 in 5. Refusal to go meant a 3 month spell in prison which was repeated for each subsequent refusal although agreement to go meant immediate release. My pleas and appeals, based upon the fact that I had served in the Air Training Corps for over 3 years in preparation for service with the Royal Air Force, meant nothing.

After medical examinations I finally received my call-up instructions in October 1944. My Direction Order said I was to report to Oakdale Training Centre Colliery in Monmouthshire, South Wales. I, like most of the other lads, went there most unwillingly and was quite scared at the thought of working underground. Accommodation was in a miners鈥� hostel which was a group of army Nisssen huts each sleeping 12, and the 4 week training programme commenced. Much of the early training took place in classrooms and it was not unusual for me, together with others, to walk out when told by the instructor that we would lose a day鈥檚 pay for arriving 10 minutes late for an 8 o鈥檆lock lecture. The fact that we had to make our way for half a mile from the hostel through thick snow was not taken as an excuse for being late. It seemed to us pointless to remain in the class for the rest of the day without being paid when one could be enjoying a day in the open or visiting the cinema in the nearby town of Blackwood. This situation, and our deployment to shovelling snow off the colliery railway tracks, resulted in an extended training time.

Whilst in my final week at Oakdale, I developed influenza and was unable of get up out of my bed. 鈥淕et up and go to work,鈥� shouted the hostel warden. 鈥淚 cannot. I feel too ill,鈥� I replied. 鈥淕o to the sick bay,鈥� he retorted. I managed with considerable difficulty and dizziness to stagger in my pyjamas through pouring rain to the sick bay. Dripping wet, I stood in front of the Sister鈥檚 desk and said in a frail voice, 鈥淚鈥檓 ill.鈥� 鈥淪it down and wait your turn,鈥� came the reply as I collapsed in a heap on the floor, lapsing into unconsciousness. The next recollection was waking up in a clean bed in the sick quarters where I remained for the next 5 days, becoming progressively worse, with my system rejecting every type of food and medicine thrust into me. I was haemorrhaging from my lungs, and on the 5th day they decided to send me to hospital.

I remember that Sunday in January 1945 and the 40 mile journey by taxi, not ambulance. Although I had a very high temperature, the cold air helped me to be aware of my surroundings. The taxi-driver told me he had another pick-up on the way to the hospital in Newport. The diversion was to one of the small mountain valley towns, possibly Cross Kays or Risca, where I was joined by a pregnant woman in advance stages of labour. The journey seemed endless, with my lapsing in and out of consciousness and her cries because of labour pains. By the time we arrived at Newport Infirmary I was completely unconscious. I was put to bed in a small ward with 5 other patients. I was examined by a senior consultant who immediately diagnosed double pneumonia and said that I was to be given one million units of Penicillin by injection every 8 hours. Unbeknown to me at that time, my chance of recovery was considered highly unlikely, so my parents were sent for and informed that I would not live through the night.

However, Penicillin, a new drug at that time and a powerful antibiotic, reduced my temperature from 106.7 to almost normal within 24 hours. Feeling very weak and not having eaten for almost a week, I was told that a crisis would follow within a few days and that I was not yet out of the woods. This duly happened, and everything repeated itself all over again, with a dramatic rise in temperature. This apparently is normal, and gradual recovery followed during the next 6 weeks. The other 5 patients in the ward were army servicemen who had been seriously wounded during action against the Germans in France. Seeing and being with these men, all of similar age to me, made me realise that at least I was in one piece, and that their plight was far more serious. When I was finally discharged from hospital, my father had to bring spare clothes from home as my locker had been broken into and stripped of everything. As a souvenir from the hospital, I was given the 2 needles used to inject me 56 times with the Penicillin!

After a short spell of sick leave, during which my hair started to fall out as a result of all the injections and I lost my girlfriend, I was sent for a medical examination. Although I was considered fit enough to no longer be on sick leave, it was thought that perhaps an immediate return to underground coal-mining work might prove detrimental, and that a short period of temporary work in the fresh air would prove to be more beneficial. Being still subject to the Essential Works Order (which was what sent me to the mines in the first place), I was sent to work on a heavy anti-aircraft gun site installation being constructed just outside London. I so hoped that my short spell of coal-mining was over once and for all, and I could leave it all behind me, but after only a few weeks I was once again summoned for a medical examination and pronounced as A1 fit. Joining instructions to return to the Training Centre Colliery in Oakdale quickly followed.

After finishing the training course (which I had to start all over again), I was finally allocated to my working colliery which, as it happens, turned out to be Oakdale itself. The standard clothing issue consisted of a miner鈥檚 helmet (made of compressed cardboard), steel-capped boots, overalls, shorts, a top and plimsolls. The weekly pay was 拢3.10s. (拢3.50p in to-day鈥檚 money) and I remained at the hostel where the weekly cost was 拢1.5s. (拢1.25p) for accommodation and meals. We got 2 meals a day and sandwiches to take to the mine, except on Sundays when 3 meals were provided. I well remember the sandwiches which we were given to take with us on shift. They always contained typical wartime fillings, mainly cheese. We each had a sealed sandwich tin so that the rodents, which used to go down in the ponies鈥� hay and straw bales, could not get at the food while we were working. We were encouraged to drink milk in the pithead canteen when coming up after finishing a shift. Pithead baths were a great advantage as an alternative to having to go back to get cleaned up at the hostel, or even returning to private billets, where there would be tin baths in front of the fire and the likelihood of having to share bath-water, but not all pits had them.

The majority of my time working underground was spent on conveyor belts, keeping the walkways clear of coal spillage, and in the loading and movement of drams. It was dirty, dusty, wet, smelly and cramped, and it was even more uncomfortable for those over 6 feet as they had could not stand upright. Before we descended in the lift or cage as it was called, we would each be searched to make sure we had no cigarettes, matches or lighters on us, and then we were each given a lamp in exchange for a brass tally or token. At the end of the shift lamps and tokens were exchanged back. This was a good way of checking that nobody had been left underground. I used to go down 1000 metres in the cage and then have a walk of more than 2 miles to reach the coal-face. There were no toilets underground which did not help the air to stay fresh! There were always at least 2 shafts in the mines, one for the cage and one for air circulation. The regular miners who were still working there used to enjoy sending the Bevin Boys to work with the ponies as we did not speak Welsh and the ponies did not understand English! Coal was taken in tubes, pulled by ponies, to the cage and then taken to be washed. Pit ponies could pull 2 tubes but if cables were used, then there was greater movement. Lights could not be relit if they went out ao the only thing to do then was to hold on to the ponies鈥� tails and they would make their way in the total darkness to the cage shaft. Most mines gave their ponies a week up out of the mines, usually in August, but not all did. The ponies would take about 24 hours to become accustomed to the daylight and then go mad with joy! I seem to remember some pit ponies moving drams about on the surface and not working underground. Oakdale was renowned for its modern methods. I, like other Bevin Boys, went absent on a number of occasions, often overstaying weekend leave.

The war finally came to an end, and in 1946 I made an appeal to be released from the mines and be transferred to the Royal Air Force to complete my period of National Service. The Ministry of Labour and National Service finally agreed to my transfer, but not without my first receiving in error my papers for the Army.

My somewhat broken service as a Bevin Boy in the coal-mines over a period of 2 years will never be forgotten but, like so many others, I looked upon the whole thing as a farce. We had been forced into an industry entirely against our wills, while the regular miners were serving in the Armed Forces. Bevin Boys were not popular amongst the local people as they understandably felt that we had come to Wales to take away the jobs from their own kith and kin who were serving in the various Forces. Fate however plays a strange game, for I could have gone straight into the R.A.F. and been killed or shot down in an aircraft. The touch and go situation of having pneumonia and recovering in a ward amongst seriously wounded soldiers brought home to me what my fate could have been. A big disadvantage of being of military age but not being in uniform was that we got a lot of verbal abuse from the public who suspected us of being draft dodgers, deserters or conscientious objectors. We were also frequently challenged by the local police.

There were Bevin Boys in 350 mines and it was 1948, 3 years after the war ended, before the last ones left. We were not servicemen and therefore there were no demob suits, no help in reclaiming or finding jobs, and indeed, after the war very little was known about the 50,00 who were sent to the mines. It has taken years to get recognition for the Bevin Boys and it was not until 1998 that they were finally included in the Remembrance Day and other parades. I am proud of the part I have played to help this happen as the Bevin Boys made an important and very necessary contribution to victory, and have at last received the credit they fully deserve.

It was all part of life鈥榮 experience and I often wonder what happened to all the people I met during that time. Did the injured soldiers recover enough to be sent back to their units and did they survive the war? How did the woman in labour who shared my taxi to the hospital get on and what is her 60 year old 鈥榖aby鈥� doing now? What did all my fellow Bevin Boys at Oakdale do after the war finished? Did the few regular miners who worked with us and who tolerated us all so well, soon forget us? How many of those miners who were called up, lived to return to the mines, and how many found the war a means of escaping from such drudgery?

Most of us found it very difficult to adjust when we first arrived at the mines as relatively immature lads, but we grew up very quickly! We were all in the same situation, the camaraderie was great, and we had some good times despite the long hours and unpleasant conditions. It was an unique experience although not one I would wish to repeat. .

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