Does anyone know if passing their full Certificate A in the Army Cadet Force or equivalent in the other cadet Forces helped in any way to prevent them being selected as Bevin Boys?
Dont think so, see selection in the article link below. Bevin Boys - Wikipedia A neighbour was called up s a Bevin Boy, he was sent to a Colliery in Leicestershire. He said that he would rather have fought the Japs in Burma like our Foreman who had been a Chindit (although he denied it). They used to rag him at work as he washed his coal after delivery and wouldn't touch it with his hands always used tongs. Every Monday morning was the worst as the miners had been out on the booze over the weekend. Once down the pit they used the coal wagons as toilets, he said the stink was unbearable! There were other reasons for the shortage of miners: Letter from Tunisia1943 Every night when we switch on the news, the advances of the Fifth and Eighth Armies and the forward surge of the Russians and the success in New Guinea, are counter poised by the depressing list of new strikes and arguments in the coal mines. The remarks of the troops are not pleasant to hear. A few are sympathetic enough to say “I don’t blame them. Wartime’s about the only time they get the chance to get what they deserve”. But most of them say “Lot of bastards they are. Let ‘em come an’ fester in this bleeding olive grove for six months and then see how they feel. (and other equally forceful remarks). I expect if the miners trusted their leaders, or the government or anyone! And if they had sufficient imagination to visualise the discomforts of an African summer under canvas they would be cheerfully churning out the black diamonds for a yet to be liberated Europe. But also I’ve no doubt that if my gunners were back in England and had never seen N. Africa, they would be just as pig headed and insensitive as the miners are now. The writer of the letter Lt. Bill Beadle, lived in Buxton Derbyshire before the War. His father was a Mines Administrator for the Board of Trade in the South Yorkshire Coalfield.
Could be wrong but if your registration/draft no. ended in nought or nine you were a Beven boy and there was no way out of it.
Not even being in the Territorial Army permitted escape from the mines. From ‘History of The Royal Northumberland Fusiliers in The Second World War’ by Brigadier C. N. Barclay. “The 7th Battalion. [TA] Soon after embodiment on the 1st September 1939 the Battalion concentrated at Gosforth Park, near Newcastle-on-Tyne. Almost immediately about 50 per cent of the men who were miners were sent back to the pits and replaced by militiamen”.
