The ensuing campaign in the coalfields, initiated both by management and trade unionists, centred on performances of The Forgotten Factor, was to continue for the next four years. Independent evaluations of its effect were numerous. For example, the editor of The Spectator wrote in his column, 'Tribute should be paid where tribute is due. I heard this week of a striking impetus to coal production....Some 300 miners from a pit went to London to see The Forgotten Factor. The result, I am assured, is that the pit regularly tops production for its region. The story comes to me from no MRA quarter, but from someone who knows the pit and pitmen particularly well.'14

After a year The Birmingham Post, writing of the West Midlands, stated, ' The new spirit is so revealing itself in increased output that, according to one computation based on recent figures, if the same results were obtained in all Britain's coalfields, the target of 200,000,000 tons a year would be exceeded by 30,000,000 tons.'15 Tom Beecham, Area Production Manager for the Rhondda, where 15,000 miners saw the play, said in April 1949, 'Production in this area rose seven per cent, while it rose two per cent in the whole Welsh coal-field.It has had a real effect on relationships, which is showing itself in negotiations between the Board and the Union. There is not the acrimony that there was. Men are quick to see any change in management.'16

Buchman prized the resulting practical changes for their own sake - for the increased wages for the miners and the lessening of hardship to the country at large. But as he insisted to his team, 'Remember, whatever I do, I am out to teach the soul.' By this he meant that he regarded the maturing of the individual as basic, first for its own sake and as the essential raw-material of larger improvements. He realised that it was often in a time of crisis that people were ready to open their hearts to the Holy Spirit and, also, that busy public figures often only paid sufficient attention to the possibility of change in themselves when they saw results of a practical kind in their own spheres of interest. The Forgotten Factor led to many crucial personal talks. Christ was not mentioned in the script but Dr Edward Woods, Bishop of Lichfield, commented after a performance, 'I saw Christ on the stage and thank God no one had to say so.17

After the first two months of the run at the Westminster, Buchman, on medical advice, started to travel south in search of a warmer climate. On 16 December, at Folkestone, he was met by an obliging dockside official with a wheel-chair. Buchman waved it aside, insisting that John Caulfeild - a robust ex-captain from the US Air Force - was the invalid, so that the unfortunate Caulfeild was pushed to the passport officer, through the customs, and on to the dock. The passage was rough, and though Buchman, with his Pennsylvania Dutch stubbornness, insisted on sitting upright in a chair, he was obviously glad when it was over.

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