Called Up Sent Down: The Bevin Boys' War

Called Up Sent Down was first published by The History Press in 2008, with a second edition released in 2010. An ebook edition was published in 2016. The author, Tom Hickman, had previously written on National service and the BBC during the Second World War. Hickman was assisted in producing the book by The Bevin Boys Association and the memoirs of former Bevin Boys. ==Content==

The first edition has 249 pages in nine chapters. Chapter eight, "On the black side", contains 16 pages of photographs and illustrations. After a page of acknowledgements, there is a list of 68 brief biographies of Bevin Boys, most of whom made written contributions to Hickman's work, including Peter Archer who later became a member of Parliament. The book ends with the notes for each chapter and an index. The second edition lists those Bevin Boys who had died since the first edition. The book is about the more than 20,000 young British boys sent to work in coal mines, known as the Bevin Boys, during the Second World War. It is based on interviews with some of them, conducted by Hickman. Beginning in December 1943, young men who had joined up and passed as fit were designated to army, navy or air force. At the instruction of Ernest Bevin, Minister of Labour and National Service, over the subsequent 17 months more than 20,000 of them were informed that they had been designated to coal mining. Ken Tyre was severely injured in the coal mines. He told Hickman, that "being a Bevin Boy wrecked my life". A broken pelvis from a mining injury left him with lifelong urinary problems. Despite having a National Service Registration number, he had never been enlisted and was therefore not entitled to a war pension. Others felt fortunate not to have been killed in the war and some remained in mining after the war. ==Reviews==

James Appell in The Oxonian Review of Books, placed the book in the context of Hickman's earlier works about the BBC and National Service which used the same formula of using personal testimonies to show the variety of experiences of individuals dealing with state institutions. Nigel Potter in The Spokesman found the book fascinating for revealing a story of which he knew little, noting particularly that the regular miners were not very patriotic which contrasted with the feelings of some of the conscripts who would have preferred to be fighting in the front line. Even if not at the front, the miners' personal accounts make clear how exhausting the work was, such that the reviewer felt he would prefer to be facing the enemy on the beaches of Normandy than working down a mine. == References ==