Bevin Boys & Bevin Plans
» MOST people associate Britain’s victory in WW2 solely with Winston Churchill, but he wasn’t alone, unsung millions helped bring it about. Not least Ernie Bevin who, while Winston carried the war forward, looked after the home front.
No appeaser, like Churchill he flagged up the growing threat of totalitarianism throughout the 1930s.
Bevin had witnessed the fate of German trade union colleagues being carted off to concentration camps.
Thanks to his leadership and organisational skills in the union movement, both Churchill and Attlee desperately wanted Ernie in the wartime coalition government, and obtained him an unopposed parliamentary seat in London, where he had been based since founding the T & G in 1922.
Bevin first obtained permission from his union colleagues to accept the post and then set to work. He kept his socialism aims for a ‘classless society’, and ensured the masses had a good diet and were kept warm – not like in WWI.
He promoted workers’ canteens and his role extended to popular wartime entertainment – he remembered that when his strikers ran out of money “[he] always got the men to sing”.
Initially Ernie thought the government offerings were “too ‘ighbrow”, so instigated ENSA (Entertainments National Service Association). His ministerial colleagues raised eyebrows however, when he took to compering ENSA programmes at the BBC from his beloved Bristol. Workers Playtime boosted factory morale and was a spin-off.
By 1943, increased British industrial output was putting a huge strain on coal mining, and the need for more miners. ‘Bevin Boys’ were the answer, and for the rest of the war one in ten male conscripts were chosen to become miners by ballot.
Some 48,000 served and got little recognition until the government awarded a veterans’ badge in 2007.
Famous Bevin Boys included Nat Lofthouse, Eric Morecombe and the notorious Jimmy Savile.
Many suffered resentment and taunts; they wore no uniform, and were accused of deliberately avoiding military conscription. Although a different scheme, some confused Bevin Boys with “Conchies”, who had the right to conscientiously object to military service for philosophical or religious reasons.
Bevin supported them in Parliament: “There are thousands of cases in which conscientious objectors, although they have refused to take up arms, have shown as much courage as anyone else in Civil Defence and in other walks of life.”
On the eve of the Cold War, more than Churchill, Bevin as Foreign Secretary understood the threat of Stalin and did his best to ensure that the West didn’t succumb to oppression. From Potsdam on, he stood up to the despot singlehandedly.
To thwart Stalin, Bevin latched on to the Marshall Plan, created Federal Germany, initiated the Deutschmark, created NATO and the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development). Looking back though, some of his thinking post 1930 was flawed; he was Imperialistic and loathe for Britain to give up its Empire, or engage in the nascent EU. Without doubt, ’r Ernie was one of the greatest statesmen of the 20th century.