MY INSPIRATION FOR
THE SECRET SISTER

The story of the Bevin Boys and their contribution to World War Two is little known and barely recognised. I probably would not have known about them myself, had I not been fortunate enough to meet the late Ivor Singer, who was one of nearly fifty thousand young men conscripted to serve their country in the Second World War by mining coal.

The British government had drafted so many men into the armed forces it led to a shortage of labour in the mines, and a dwindling supply of the coal needed to make steel for planes, tanks and other armaments soon reached crisis point. When a plea for volunteers failed Ernest Bevin, the Minister for Labour and National Service, devised a scheme for compulsory conscription.

Controversially, he insisted that conscripts should be chosen by ballot to make it completely fair. On average, one in ten young men of call-up age were chosen from all regions of the UK, all backgrounds and all levels of education.

The posting was deeply unpopular. The work was poorly paid, hard and dangerous; accidents were common and near misses an almost daily event. Worst of all was the stigma of not being in uniform; they were taunted for being cowards and derided as ‘conchies’, because some genuine conscientious objectors actually volunteered to go down the mines.

It was not until 65 years later that the Bevin Boys would receive long-overdue recognition and awarded a Veterans Badge. Five years after that the Bevin Boys memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire was unveiled.