成人快手

As the effect of conscription during the Second World War began to be felt, it looked as though there might not be enough men left to keep the country's coal mines - vital to the war effort - going. Ernest Bevin, Minister for Labour, decided that some of those conscripted for military service would be sent to work in the pits. Harry Schofield, called up at the age of 17 and sent to Lofthouse Colliery, explains: "You had no choice, you see...You got picked out of a hat and if your name came out you were in the mines."

Harry was 17 when he was sent to Lofthouse...

By 1948, 48,000 'Bevin Boys' - as they came to be called - had been conscripted but for more than sixty years the part they played in the War went unrecognised. However, in June 2007 prime minister Tony Blair announced that those conscripted directly into the mines would be rewarded with a commemorative badge, saying the country owed the Bevin Boys a "sense of gratitude".

Working underground was dangerous work as Harry Schofield discovered when he went to work at Lofthouse. He found himself working on the night shift: "We were the only ones who worked on nights. Nobody else. We took stuff to the face for the day men. Anything they needed we took down. It only needed one man - well, there were two of us - and the pony."

The pithead at Lofthouse, now demolished...

There's one particular night Harry will never forget: "I went out in front in the Beeston seam at Lofthouse Colliery. We'd just started. We were just going down the seam, just down the loader gate...We'd been college trained to look for bits [coming] down. I said, 'There's bits!' and the old fella says, 'Oh, go on,' so I went forward and the next thing you know, everything's coming down. I was an 18-year-old trapped down the pit on my own at night. Nobody else there, miles down the pit. Eventually the day people came and dug me out."

Harry points out that this happened in the same seam at Lofthouse where, on the night of March 21st 1973, water and sludge poured into the pit trapping seven men. Only one body was eventually recovered.

He doesn't remember what he did in the war with any fondness: "I hated it. I was in almost two years and hated every moment. I had no choice whatsoever." Asked if he'd ever advise anybody else to get a job in the pit, he says: "Don't do it. There's a song about that, isn't there? 'Don't go down the mines, Dad. There's plenty of coal on the top.'"

The Bevin Boys Association banner...

Even at the time Harry believes the role the 'Bevin Boys' played was often misunderstood: "People didn't know the right story. They were saying we were conscientious objectors but we weren't. We were conscripted, we had no choice. It's come out now."

Harry's service at Lofthouse was cut short when he was hit by a train as he went home at the end of a night shift in March, 1945. His foot was trapped in a rail while he was crossing the track. He says: "Eventually I saw this express train coming towards me. Couldn't do a thing about it. I waited and waited. There was somebody with me and he went. Eventually it hit me."

Harry was in a coma for three days after the accident and had to have several operations. On VE Day he was in Clayton Hospital in Wakefield and only left hospital, six months after he'd been hit by the train, because beds were needed for wounded soldiers. Meeting Harry today, you wouldn't believe that in 1945 he was told he would never walk again.

Harry today

But Harry's military service didn't stop there. He was conscripted into the Royal Army Service Corps: "They sent for me because I'd come out of the pit." Six months later he returned to Civvy Street and a job in the mills.

In May 2008, Harry Schofield received his badge and certificate at a formal presentation ceremony organised by the Yorkshire and District Bevin Boys Association at the National Coal Mining Museum in Wakefield. He feels the Bevin Boys Badge is finally an acknowledgement by the country of the part played by his comrades in collieries across West Yorkshire, and the country: "It tells you, they couldn't have won the War without them. That's the exact words that were said. They couldn't have won the War without them."