Forgotten Army — Ronald Griffin

By 1943 some 82,000 miners left the industry to join the armed forces and munitions factories leaving the industry bereft of essential labour for winning the War Mr Ernest Benin Minister of Labour and National Service devised a system whereas young men of call up age, dubbed `Bevin Boys' were compulsory selected by ballot into the coal mines. A London public schoolboy James Cobham was one of the thousands conscripted. His Father, a London Banker had ambitions for Sandhurst, such were thwarted causing a rift between Father and son. After initial training he was sent to a hazardous mine on the south coast of Wales employed on a face several miles under the sea. He was to witness much trauma, together with dire lodgings and a dominating landlady. He endured six hazardous months then transferred to a modem Welsh mine. He lodged with a young widow Cathleen, securing an harmonious friendship But such was to change when her husband Howard presumed to have been lost at sea, returned home. All three eventually were to become a united family until James was finally demobbed in 1948. On return to London James hoping to find a position in his father's bank was thwarted by his sudden death. Their large Belgravia house had expired its lease and his mother absconded to Australia to live with her sister. James left almost poverty stricken, sort employment as relief postman over the Christmas period. By a fluke he was approached by a Lawrence White manager from his father's bank who offered him a position. Providence at last shined on James. But at what price?