50Th Anniversary Of The Aberfan Disaster

[mikey4444]

On the 21st of this month, it will be the 50th Anniversary of the Aberfan disaster.

Sir Karl Jenkins has composed a wonderful new choral work, to commemorate the event :::::::

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-37584936

[ichkeria]

Possibly my earliest memory of watching the TV news was this tragedy..

[marval]

I remember when that happened, a dreadful tragedy.

[mikey4444]

ichkeria....I was 13 at the time. I came bounding in from school, expecting to see my favourite TV program....Blue Peter perhaps, but finding that the schedules were completely taken over by the disaster.

We were doing Wales in Geography at the time and our Teacher, a lovely man called Mr Garland, who came from Swansea, told us all about the mining in the area in school afterwards. I was still living in Somerset at the time.

If you read the history of the event, it will make you very worked up, as this was a disaster that some had seen coming, but the bloody coal board did begger-all about.

When I later joined BT Telephones ( BT ) I recall people telling stories about how they worked in the hours after the disaster, laying emergency telephone cables right across people rear gardens, where they stayed, in working order for months afterwards.

A few years ago I met a lady who was 16 at the time of the disaster, who had lost her little 10 year old brother. She had his school photo on her mantelpiece. She said that her Mother wouldn't let her out of her sight for weeks after the event, as she was the only child left in the street.

A very sad event.

[ichkeria]

On the occasion of the 20th anniversary Mikey I remember reading a lot about the background.
I can still see the mums on our black and white TV screen waiting and weeping.
Years later I ran in a road race that went past Aberfan and I remember looking up at the gravestones on the hill ...

[mikey4444]

ichkeria....if you are ever in the area, I would recommend a visit to the graves.

The 3 rows of graves are immaculate, most made of white marble. Some of them have those little ceramic photos on the graves stones. Its a very sad sight in deed. When you get to the graves with 2 siblings and some with 3 siblings in them, I defy anybody not get the hanky out.

Here is the Wiki entry. Its worth reading all the links, especially the ones that deal with the aftermath, and Enquiry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberfan_disaster

The National Coal Board comes out of the whole affair extremely badly. The Miners Pension Fund was even raided to pay for the making safe of other tips, a wrong that Tony Blair remedied as soon as Labour came into power in 1997.

[Togo]

Mikey is no tragedy or disaster off limits enough to dissuade you from trying to twist it into a party political broadcast?

[mikey4444]

Just the facts Togo. From the Wiki entry.

"In 1997 the incoming Labour government of Tony Blair returned to the Disaster Fund the £150,000 it had been induced by the Labour government of Harold Wilson to contribute towards the cost of tip removal"

[wiltsman]

I remember this sad event very well. I had just got married, and my wife and I heard the news in the house we had just moved into in Calne, Wiltshire.

Co-incidentally, I seem to remember that Welsh singer, Tom Jones record of The Green Green Grass of Home, was No 1 in the Hit Parade at the time.

[TWR]

Mikey, I gather the then chairman of the Coal board was Jerry marbarow

[TWR]

Not sure if the name is right, but he was advised that the coal slags would move as they were tipped on an area that streams ran through.

[EDDIE51]

I remember it well, I had a close school,friend who came from very near the site of the disaster. I had to break the news to him.

[TWR]

Lord Robens

[Tilly2]

As a child growing up in a mining village, I found the event very distressing. I remember it vividly. Awful!

[Mamyalynne]

Clear memories of that day and the days that followed, a real tragedy.

[Togo]

It was a terrible thing and I remember at the age of 19, with 12 younger brothers and sisters, and recently having just left the mine industry after deciding that it was not for me being very moved by it. But remember, spoil tips just like that one were dotted all over Britain. Yorkshire, Lancashire, Staffordshire, and many other places. The tips had been generated during the war when the only criteria was, get the coal out of the ground and keep the railways and factories running, fight the Nazis at all costs. The mines and infrastructure were vastly undermanned due to military requirements and short cuts were taken in the National interest. The poor children and their families paid a terrible price for those strategies and I for one would not countenance using that set of circumstances to make political points.

[Togo]

I would add that the Karl Jenkins composition in commemoration is absolutely perfect.

[mikey4444]

Togo....My intention was not to make a political point, but to explain the injustice of the time. I, too think that Karl Jenkins composition is marvellous and I will be listening to on Saturday.

[tonyav]

I remember the Aberfan disaster, a terrible disaster. Most of the kids that were killed were around the same age then.

[TWR]

Mikey don't take the bait??? You know what I mean??