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Wales (Counties as in 1851-1901) => Wales => Glamorganshire => Topic started by: Fisherman on Monday 21 October 19 09:13 BST (UK)
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Today is the 53rd anniversary of the Aberfan disaster.
At 9:13 A.M the slurry from the coal tip above the village hit the school and nearby houses killing 144 people, including 116 children.
Fisherman
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I think all of us who were alive then will remember where we were on that day. I was in London at the time but had grown up in the shadow of the slurry tips in North Wales.
Such an awful tragedy.
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Yes I was in school.
Mr. Fred Evans our music teacher broke the news to us.
I can picture it now.
When I got home my grandfather had left with other miners to help in the rescue operation. He didn't come home for two days.
Fisherman
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I live close to this event in another valley. Many men i knew including my father went to help and even try to shift the slag with thier hands to find the poor children. The coalboard where never really brought to justice
The cemetary where these beautiful children are is so upsetting there is a photo of every child above thier grave.
RIP little ones
Heddwch
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Love this poem...
In the dark welsh valley,
On the mountain side,
Lay the little children,
Close to where they died.
Their little lives are ended,
Before they reach their goal,
Tender little children have paid the price of coal.đŸ’«
Aberfan, never forgotten. 21/10/1966.
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That's really touching Carol...Yes I remember the awful scenes on the news on TV...both my Sister and I were crying and didn't eat our tea as it didn't feel right :'(
Carol
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Someone posted it on Facebook,it's lovely isn't it.
I remember being in class at my senior school and the head mistress coming round to each class and telling us what had happened.
The pictures on the news that night were so awfully sad.
Carol
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One of those awful landmark days.
Such a terrible tragedy. :'(
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The sickening slurry
With remorseless wrath
Industry’s legacy
The school in it’s path
Rescuers digging
For all they were worth
The next generation
Beneath the dank earth
With frantic energy
They tore at the ground
Not abandoning hope
Life would be found
The world watched that day
United in sorrow
For those innocent lives
Lost to tomorrow
Roger
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In the words of another from the same valley who suffered injustice over a century earlier (Dic Penderyn)
"O Arglwydd dyma gamwedd" ("Oh Lord this is iniquity")
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Also don't live far from Aberfan, I know someone who was in the school that day - her parents moved out of the village because of feeling guilty their child was alive
A few years ago she put someone on facebook on the anniversary and another Aberfan survivor commented that when she stopped coming to school (because they had moved to the next valley) she just assumed it was because she had died - because in a 6 year old's mind that was why people didn't turn up for school anymore.
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We were living abroad ,but the disaster was on the main T V news.
Parents were interviewed and I shall never forget one mother , her
little girl was very slow getting ready for school and was late so she had to leave without eating her breakfast that morning.
The poor woman felt so guilty.
But it was something many mothers will have done in an effort to get their children to be responsible .
The National Coal Board had been warned many times about the tips and heavy rain had unsettled the slurry further that Autumn.
The proper and full price of coal was never measured in human lives of miners and their families ,just as with fishermen and the price of fish.
The Nationalisation of the Coal Industry ought to have ended the penny pinching of private ownership, but alas no.
My son did as part of his degree ,the utilisation of waste by - products of the coal industry ,but much later than Aberfan,and in any case the Clean Air act
would probably have scuppered that.
I think the heaps have been landscaped now.
But what a tragedy , it ought never to have happened and was entirely
avoidable.
Viktoria.