Remembering Aberfan 50 years Ago Today...

Our thoughts go to all the parents and families of the 116 children and 28 adults who died in this horrific tragedy 50 years ago today.I was only ten at the time but I can remember watching the horror unfold on our old black and white tv when I came home from school and although I was a bit young to be affected by it all and what had happened to all those lost I can still remember seeing the many people trying to dig out with their bare hands the children and teachers who were buried by the many tons of spoil heap that collapsed onto Pantglas Junior school after days of heavy rain

Evidently concerns and a petition was raised by concerned parents about the dangerous slag heap falling onto the school but their fears were brushed aside by the ones in higher up positions

I can also remember the mass funeral that was held for them all and the sorrow that everyone felt in the weeks,months and years following,but it is good that it held the village together but the scars will never heal as those children never got a chance of life,marriage,or children of their own and even today the few survivors that were pulled out alive still live with the guilt that they survived but their school friends did not

 

Such a sad, sad, anniversary.

 

Exactly my memories of the event. They are still so vivid I know exactly where I was sitting when I saw it on the tv news.

One of the saddest things about the whole thing was the fact that despite blame being put on the NCB, (Lord Robens?) no action was ever taken against them.

(from a song released a year the event)

Have you seen my wife, Mr. Jones?
Do you know what it's like on the outside?
Don't go talking too loud, you'll cause a landslide, Mr. Jones.

 

My mother always reminds me of the midwife's words when I was born: "I've just brought one life into the world as more than a hundred others have gone out". Not a birthday has gone by that I haven't thought of Aberfan.

 

Mum must have kept it quiet from me, I was only 4.

Didn't find out about it till I read Spike Milligan's poem, been looking for a copy of it but can't find it.

 

Before the 9.15 minutes silence, the current Aberfan schoolchildren were told by their headmistress, that they were the future of the village.

 

You are correct.
For anyone with access to iPlayer, who may be interested, I watched this yesterday:

 

Back when the coal mines were operating, a visitor to a coal mining community could always recognise those that worked in the mines. All of them had black scars somewhere on the bodies caused by coal dust getting into wounds. Miners families had a kind of acceptance that sooner or later, their loved ones that worked the coal would get killed or injured.

The one thing that they never expected was that members of the families not working in the mines would get killed. Somehow, that makes this event even more tragic. No action ever being taken to prosecute those found accountable only adds to the tragedy. Proving in a sense the old saying, "one law for the rich, another for the poor."

 

I remember it I was a school kid myself at the time.
It was tragic, for those affected.

We, that is the general public, didn't dwell on things in those days like we are made to do now by the media.

But it was in the days when people took things and accepted them.
There was no blame culture, no payouts of compensation, so a different age, half a century ago.
We were all different then.

Just a very sad event.

 

The queen didn`t visit Aberfan at the time, apparently she regretted that.