During World War II, England needed to increase its production of coal if it was going to have any hope of winning the war.
Winston Churchill called together labor leaders to enlist their support. And at the end of his presentation he asked them to stand with him and picture in their minds a grand parade, which he knew would be held in Piccadilly Circus after the war.
First, he said, would come the sailors who had kept the vital sea-lanes open. Then would come the soldiers who had come home from Dunkirk and then gone on to defeat Rommel in Africa.
Then would come the pilots, those brave men who had driven the Luftwaffe from the sky.
Last of all, he said, would come a long line of sweat-stained, soot-streaked men in miner’s caps.
Someone would cry from the crowd, ’And where were you during the critical days of our struggle?’
And from ten thousand throats would come the answer, ’We were deep in the earth with our faces to the coal.”