| Those exempted from military service, except for those medically unfit, and in some rare cases, Conscientious Objectors, were employed in Offcial Reserved Occupations. Though this list changed over the course of the war, the basic list was:
Miners
Dock Workers
Farmers
Scientists
Merchant Seamen
Railway Workers
Utility Workers - Water, Gas, Electricity
and those who worked in essential war industries - making weapons, ships, aircraft etc
By 1941 (1942?) even women (except those with children under 14) were conscripted into one of the Services, or into a war industry. And the Bevan Boys wee those conscription directed them towards mining instead of one of the Forces.
So, publicans were not exempted. They would have tended to be older men, and yes many women took these jobs too.
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