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From @sandycraigart |
As we come up to the 50th anniversary of that
terrible, terrible tragedy I thought I would put down some of my own thoughts
and recollections. I grew up very close to the village of Aberfan and over the
years the memories of the events of that day have come back to me at times
incredibly vividly and at times incredibly painfully. To this day I am sometimes amazed of how
those memories overwhelm me sometimes for no apparent reason even though it is
now a long time ago. Recently somebody asked me about my experiences and
although at first I was quite happy to talk about it I quickly found it brought me close to tears.
The disaster happened on Friday 21st October 1966. I remember it was the last Friday before the
half term holidays. I was nine years old,
the same age as most of the children who were to die. I was at school that day at Caedraw about three miles away from the Pantglas school where the vast majority of the
deaths were to occur. At the time I was doing a school meteorology project and
I was studiously keeping a diary of the daily weather. As is often the case in
The Valleys in late October we had had days and days of continual monochrome
rain which was making my diary quite boring and repetitive and it was that rain
that was to cause the flood of misery. The morning of the disaster was bitterly cold and
misty, as a portent as to what was to follow the morning mist clung to the sides
of the valleys as a shroud clings to the furrows of the body of a corpse.
The disaster happened early in the morning just after
morning prayers. In those days all schools used to have an assembly followed by prayers so it was the same for us in Caedraw as it would have been for the kids in Pantglas. I was sat at my desk near the window and I vividly remember the news hitting the town of Merthyr as if it
were yesterday. It was as if you could
palpably feel the impact of the news on the town and the community. Although at
that time we didn’t know what had happened we knew something had happened. You could hear sirens going off all over the
town and ambulance, fire and police all racing down the valley. In those days,
before most people had telephones, there used to be an air raid type siren that
was used to summon the reserve firemen. The ringing of ambulance, police and
fire bells together with the drone of that air raid type fire siren is an
enduring memory of mine of that fateful morning
By the time morning playtime came teachers were running
about obviously agitated and we were beginning to hear that something had
happened in Aberfan. The first thing we
heard was that a wall had fallen down at the school on top of some kids. It
didn’t take much longer for us to hear what had happened but still at this time
the extent of the disaster and the loss of life was beyond us.
For those of you who didn’t know South Wales at this time it
is hard to explain how much coal tips were part of our everyday existence. They
were everywhere, by the sides of schools, by the sides of churches. They dominated the local landscape and in no
way were they seen as a danger. As I had grown up in the area I thought
everywhere had tips like we did. As
children tips were where we used to play, ride our bikes over them like scramblers
or one of my favourite games was to slide down them on an old piece of lino or
oil cloth as we used to call it at the time. Tips were such a ubiquitous part
of our everyday being I reckon I was about 13 before I realised they were not
part of the natural environment.
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Miners helping with the rescue with the tips of Aberfan in the background |
By the end of school we were very much aware that something
very serious had happened in Aberfan but still the full extent of the loss of
life was not clear, but at nine years old grasping the true extent of such horrors is not easy. In those heady
days when fear of everything did not stalk every corner of parenthood as it
seems to do today as a nine year old I was allowed to walk the mile or so from
school to my home crossing a number of busy roads unaccompanied. On my way home
the roads were already filling with traffic going down to Aberfan as people
sought to help in any way they could. When I got home my father had set off on
foot to see if he could help, lots of people did the same that day. Miners
walked over the mountain from Penrhiwceiber
to try to help as did the miners from the nearby Merthyr Vale colliery
but all to no avail as nobody was pulled out alive after 11.00 just two hours after tip had engulfed
the school. As a matter of fact one of the last people to be pulled out alive
was Jeff Edwards who was later to become a friend of mine and mayor of Merthyr.
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Jeff being rescued |
That night I went out to play with my mates as usual and I
remember the roads of Merthyr being completely blocked as people tried to get
to the village. There was a strange sense of desperation in the air as
everybody wanted to help but there was no way they could. In the mid 1960s cars were not as plentiful
as they are today so to see such a huge traffic jam, particularly in Merthyr,
was unheard of. When I got home my
father had retuned and although he had been unable to help as there had already
been too many people there already he was obviously shaken and very subdued.
It was the aftermath of the disaster which was I think to
give me personally the biggest trauma and was to show the British Establishment
at its very worse. The way the people of
Aberfan were treated disgusted me then as a nine year old and still does to
this day. Our so called wonderful Queen
took eight days before she decided she could be bothered to visit, which left a
lasting resentment among many local people to the institution of the monarchy.
Almost straight away the National Coal Board tried to wriggle out of their
responsibility for causing the disaster and would eventually only pay £500
compensation for the death of each child. Those whose houses were destroyed in
the disaster were rehoused in caravans through the cold, cold winter and where
they were left to suffer their grief at losing homes and loved ones. £150,000
from the disaster fund, which was donated by mainly working people from all
over the world, was used by the NCB to remove the remains of the coal tip and
the rest of the mess left by the disaster this money was finally repaid in 1997 but did not take in to account the full interest and inflation rates and many feel £1.5 Million should have been repaid this was finally repaid in 2007 by the Welsh Government.
Just take some time to think about all of this for one
minute. Think about how much wealth the
coal mines of South Wales provided for this country. How that coal was used to build the worldwide
industry and empire that The Queen and her ancestors lorded it over and in
thanks for that they were told that their children’s lives were worth £500 and
if you lost your home as well just get in a shed and get on with it, that’s
good enough for you. The people of Wales, the UK and the rest of the world
showed great compassion, solidarity and generosity to the people of Aberfan
with donations, gifts and messages of support flowing in from all over the world.
In contrast the British Establishment in the form of The Government, The
National Coal Board and the Monarchy closed ranks to ensure that as little
damage as possible was inflicted on their interests in spite of the fact of the
great debt that they owed to the mining communities of South Wales. At the very
least the Queen should have let the survivors live in Buckingham Palace and the
National Coal Board should have given them free coal to heat it. It was to be less than twenty years later
that these same mining communities were to be deemed the “enemy within” by
another Establishment figure who viewed the mining communities of South Wales with distain.
I sometimes think if
just one percent of the wealth the was produced by the communities of South
Wales that supported the development of the British Empire came back into the
Valleys we wouldn’t have suffered the misery of events like Aberfan the
continuing poverty and the ongoing exclusion and poverty that continues to
blight this area to this day. It has been interesting in the recent reporting
of the anniversary of Aberfan that it has become evident that not many younger
people know of the story. Obviously it is not something taught in schools. I believe it is possible to learn great
lessons from history particularly about what a nation holds dear and what its
real values are, therein lies the reason that our young people are not told the true
story of Aberfan.