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Teenage Jack Hill, who was working for a Leicester bank during World War II, tells us how he did his bit for his country.
The release mechanism came in the form of the compulsory registration and call up of eighteen-year-olds into war service. I attended a medical examination board two months before I was eighteen and was pronounced Al fit and given the option of joining the navy as an electrician or going into the army. I couldn't bear the thought of bayonets and close fighting in mud so I opted for the sea.
The call up was a regular monthly affair but the medical inspection was very low key. Trousers were dropped to allow the doctor to study ones' dangly bits and the cold hand held ones testicles for the customary cough. This happened in a large room with no screens, and one was given a jam jar with the instruction, 'Go over there and do a sample.' Over there was an unlit fireplace and the required production was something of an embarrassment.
Arriving back at the office I told my lady mates that I would be a sailor and did a small hornpipe dance to prove it. Little did I know of Ernie Bevin's balloting scheme until the end of the month when a buff envelope arrived containing a small piece of buff paper advising that I had been selected by ballot to undergo training as a coal mining worker.
The news wasn't traumatic since I had lived with miners all my life and dad had in fact worked at Bagworth Colliery in 1916 before he was drafted into the army. The clincher was the footnote, which stated that, 'Failure to attend at Creswell colliery for training would render me liable to a term of imprisonment.' Didn't think much of that so farewell jack tar and hullo Bevin Boy
Creswell Colliery had an old seam that had been worked out, and so the pithead gear and workings were brought into service there for training and acclimatisation. Living accommodation was a group of metal Nissen huts with very poor insulation, proving extremely cold except if one was close to the coal-fired stove.
I can't remember how beds were allocated but I didn't get a stove position. Can't remember much about the ablutions but they were also on the cold side. And this of course coincided with the winter months of January and February.
We were very quickly taken down below and shown the various combinations of equipment, how to clip on tubs and wield a shovel. I soon felt at home and as it was all training there was no pressure, but the question that hung over us was where would we be sent at the end of the month.
Fortunately for me my allocation showed common sense combining my knowledge of Bagworth and the fact that I could live at home. Hearing of other Bevin Boy allocations there were many cases of raw deals.
Memories of the training are vague but on one occasion a group was helping to fire the boilers when the shift changeover occurred. The regulars left us with the instruction to keep firing till the replacements arrived. A few safety gauges started to creep towards the red but the regulars soon vented the valves to reduce pressure.
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