Henry Zebrowski

Jimmy Savile turned 18 in 1944 and received his papers to report for duty to king and country.

Jimmy Savile, however, didn't fight in the war.

Instead, the number on Savile's national service papers assigned him to work the coal mines of the British Isles.

See, England couldn't import coal during World War II, so coal production from mines within England itself had to be increased.

So from 1943 until 1948, the wartime Minister of Labor and National Service, Ernest Bevan, conscripted some 50,000 young men to work England's coal mines.

There were no exceptions for men given this assignment.

If you got assigned to the mines, you had to go down into the mines.

and a citizen could be fined or imprisoned if they refused.

These conscripted workers, who spent 18 months in the mines on each stretch, came to be known as the Bevan Boys, named after Ernest Bevan.

Jimmy Savile, of course, was by far the most famous Bevan Boy to ever go down the shaft.

I'd just die in there.

For 18 months.

You could make toilet wine.

Yeah.

Now, the experience of being a Bevan boy sounds fucking awful.

Yeah.

In every way.

After four weeks of training, these conscripted Brits would be sent down into the mines.

Mines that were sometimes miles deep.

And they'd be sent down in a cage that descended at anywhere between 30 and 70 feet per second.