Talk:Bevin Boys

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FYI, the eerie confluence of facts on the web about this subject makes me think they are all derived from a single source--which may be the cited reference, or may be something the cited reference was directly based off of. There is one fact from that reference which seems strange, citing 10% of draftees 18-25 as being Bevin Boys but then saying that every month, *2* out of 10 numbers were chosen to go to the mines, which should give 20%. It could be that he was taking a percentage of the total draftees, though.

Oh, also, please feel free to modify my spellings and anything else to be British. I am from the U.S. --Jkeiser 08:39, Jun 28, 2004 (UTC)

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The information I have on the Bevin Boys' selection was that those with a conscription number ending in 0 were sent to the mines. This would confirm the 10% figure and cast doubt on the random selection. Tiles 09:05, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I don't personally doubt that part of the story, because a miner's personal story confirms it (though perhaps he was exaggerating?). In an interview (see [1]), he said that 0 and 5 were up at the time he was called, and his number ended in 0. That might actually be the source of the 0 belief. Where did your information come from, BTW? (My research was not meticulous, I just went and looked at like 15 or so websites related to Bevin Boys that I got from a couple of Google searches.) --Jkeiser 16:57, Jun 28, 2004 (UTC)

See Jock Purdon. I got the information from the reference in the article Tiles 08:11, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Hmm. I haven't read that article (there is no clicky clicky and I have to go to work), but it could be an implication thing: "his number was 0, therefore he became a Bevin Boy" does not imply the reverse, "all Bevin Boys were chosen because their numbers were 0." Given that we do have two seemingly independent resources saying that two numbers were used (Laurence Wood in that article talking about 0 and 5 above and the reference on the Wikipedia article talking about the hat selection) it might be worth reading the third one in that context to see if it really contradicts or not. (Still, that miner did happen to have 0 as the last number, he just remembers that 5's went too.)

Does the article you reference say that 0 was *always* a number, or does it leave it up to interpretation whether it might have been different numbers at different times? Similarly, does it explicitly say that 0 was the *only* number? The reference I quoted above, the interview with Laurence Wood, leaves it ambiguous whether the numbers changed over time, but is quite clear that two numbers 0 and 5 were potential Bevin Boys. "If your number ended in a nought or a five, you became a Bevin Boy." --Jkeiser 16:25, Jun 29, 2004 (UTC)

If there was more than 1 digit involved there would have been more than 10% of the conscripts allocated to the mines. I will do some more research to determine the actual process. Tiles 08:07, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

My suspicion is, either that number is wrong, or it is 10% of *all* conscripts during the entire war. 20% of the conscripts 50% of the time is 10% of total conscripts. But it could be either way. I am plum out of resources to research though, at least until I hit the library again. --Jkeiser 06:58, Jul 1, 2004 (UTC)

Information from a reliable source, Gavin Purdon , whose father, Jock Purdon, was a Bevin Boy: "There were 33 blind draws held between Dec 1943 and May 1945. The last digit of your call up number was the decider.

Out of the 33 blind draws 0 was drawn 3 times and 5 twice. All numbers 0 to 9 appeared at some point. Jock's number was 0 so he was one of the very first contingent designated for the mines on 14 Dec 1943. 0 did not reappear until Sept 1944 by which time he was already a trained miner working at Harraton Colliery". Tiles 22:42, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

OK, so now we have confirmation that there was in fact a blind draw (the hat story is still plausible :)). I don't read this as saying whether there were 1 or 2 numbers drawn at the same time though, do you? --Jkeiser 02:45, Jul 17, 2004 (UTC)

I am now feeling a lot better about the original source, now that I found this by the same person, a personal testimony. Unless you disagree, I think we can call the information reliable--I don't see contradictions in any of the reports, his is just super specific. --Jkeiser 02:58, Jul 17, 2004 (UTC)

I agree. Tiles 03:28, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Have you guys noticed that your source links do not work anymore? I just followed a link, but this is an interesting story. LeaNder 12:53, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Another comment: I do not want to mess up your work here, but how about linking this up to Ernest Bevin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Bevin. Sorry still have not studied the basics, like how to link orderly, but will do soon. Admittedly I was curious: Why "Bevin Boys". And all things web like "define: Bevin Boys" link back to the wonderful Wikis out there. LeaNder 13:05, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The boys

I believe Bevin is actually spelled "BEVAN"...someone should double-check this and make it easier to search. thanks, 71.211.167.248 05:04, 20 March 2007 (UTC)Fulcher