Look at the Bevin Boys: from 1943-1947 once a week the minister would pull out a digit from 0-9, and all men liable to report that week whose registration numbers last digit matched the minister's pull were sent off to be coal miners. While soldiers viewed this as a way to escape the dangers of the front, the men themselves faced the dangers of coal mining without a guaranteed job to come back to (unlike with soldiers, who could not lose their job due to government service).

But that was the only way that a Britain at war could get enough coal miners. Conscripting them