Abervan at 50, a Disaster that shook a Nation

[al**bear]

 50 years ago Today

 The Death toll was horrendous 116 Junior school Pupils and 28 adults,

drowned in a wet black coal dust sludge

Looking Back I think This was when

I realised  for the first time that I was mortal

Kids the same as Me,

the same age as Me,

sitting just like Me in a Classroom Had Died

I don't think I was alone in thinking this among the Young in Britain

That gut wrenching feeling shouldn't be felt twice, then near here we Had Dunblane

Suffer the little Kids

[al**bear]

The above is what I think, loads of people across the UK thought

But how could you even imagine what was in the heads of the People and families of Abervan it'self

No words would be enough, from an outsider

[right-then-petal]

A Sad Time Indeed Al I Remember Hearing About It When I Younger

Just Seen The News Today, They Say Lessons Have Been learnt

[al**bear]

By the way,

the Coal board fought for years and years, before they were forced to get rid of the Tips that surrounded Abervan

[margaret*e]

Tragic, like many things caused by officials not listening until it was too late.

I remember it happening a couple of days after my 16th birthday.

[al**bear]

So sorry ABERFAN

I'm an idiot

-------------------

An Inquiry found ALL the blame laid with the NCB at lots of levels, no one lost their Job or were charged in relation to years and years of failures

Chairman of NCB  Alfred "Alf" Robens, (later Baron Robens of Woldingham)  fought hard against  paying towards clearing things up.

btw ironically He was later appointed as Head of a Parliamentary committee on 'workplace health and safety'.

Quite ILLEGALLY they used a big chunk of the Disaster fund £250000 (more than double what the Government put in) towards the clear up costs.

[margaret*e]

I hadn't even noticed the mistake, Al.

[cee-dee]

F is pronounced as a V in Welsh.

[littleme61_6]

Absolutely tragic for all that happened. A huge loss to so many of the childrens families. 

God bless them all. 

I just heard on the radio from two of the survivors. One was saying she noticed smoke from outside of the window. She mentioned this to the teacher. The teacher replied ''Oh that is just the smoke coming from the kitchen from the school canteen''. But then the child realised they did not have a kitchen in the school canteen. Maybe the youngsters dinners were brought in for them from a caterers. 

Also another survivor mentioned the noise that he could hear, as if a loud plane was flying overhead, yet even as a youngster he knew it couldn't possibly have been a plane. 

Thing is as we all know there was no chance whatsoever quickly, for all to get out of the way from what transpired. Although of course fortunately many did survive. But dreadful memories for them all losing many of their friends that day. 

[jd.linklater]

An absolute tragedy and what made it harder to bear was the fact that it was completely avoidable.  The NCB had plenty of warnings about the proximity of the tips to the village and all were ignored. Even looking at the photos today it's difficult to imagine how all that slurry could have travelled so far so rapidly, but I guess when once it was in motion, the top would have collapsed and momentum took over. The fact that the tips were placed on a fairly steep hill was a major contributory factor.

That was the only time I can remember our school day being brought to a halt, everyone gathered in the hall to hear the announcement and to hold a minute's silence to remember the victims. Everyone was kind of shell shocked by the news, a day to remember always.

[littleme61_6]

The same happened at my school too. We were all so shocked, and terribly sad to hear what had happened. Never to be forgotten. 

The news certainly travelled far and fast, even for those days. I was born and educated in St.Helier Jersey, yet on the day it happened we were told about this tragedy. 

[astrologica]

The coal slurry came down at speed because the tips were put on top of a natural spring. Madness, and negligence. That, combined with the fact that there had been days of heavy rain just turned the tips into thick black water. The NCB denied afterwards that they knew about the spring, but documentary evidence proved otherwise. Aberfan is just a few miles from where I live, and I remember that day as if it was yesterday. I was a young woman then, with two small children, and I just felt so sorry for the people who lost their children. Up until that day my Mother had been a Christian woman, and I remember seeing her cry...a rare occurrence.From then on she denied the existence of God...she said no God would have allowed that to happen.

Aberfan today is a very different place. The strength of the people has made it so. Those wonderful women who hid their grief and helped each other to survive....they have borne so much. A very sad day in Wales..but also one of hope for their future.

[jd.linklater]

Just found this link on the BBC site. It's a very detailed description of the events of the day and also illustrates the shameful way the relief fund was spent in the aftermath. Difficult to get through in parts but a very important and well written article. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-150d11df-c541-44a9-9332-560a19828c47

[evoman3957]

Many Welsh Hearts were broken on that day.

[aand2136-voqfz8yx]

I was too young to remember this at the time, but like most have been made aware of it over the years. What I didn't know is the struggle the people of Aberfan had in dealing with the slag heaps, the coal board and its management after the event. An horrific event made considerably worse by the lack of sensitivity by certain indivduals in power.

But enough about certain individuals; words are simply not enough, but whenever this story has appeared on the news in the last few days, I just stop and stare - it's unbelievable. I'm just watching, the people of Aberfan have had to live with it.

[littleme61_6]

Yes so difficult in many parts to get through. Reading of first-hand feelings, emotions, and all that came to so many as the years carried on. So understandable how many of the children thought inwardly.

As here mentioned by some in the link you added.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-150d11df-c541-44a9-9332-560a19828c47

Quote:. “It is a very difficult emotion to come to terms with. We had no childhood, it was taken from us.

“Play is an important part of a child’s development but that stopped. Most of the kids we played with were gone and play was frowned upon by some parents who lost children.”

........

So hard for many to even think of a new day ahead, as so many there saying of their form of guilt for in a way surviving. 

Just so pleased they did of course. But so very hard to even open up about what they thought, saw, and of their physical as well as their mental pain too. 

[evoman3957]

It's those slag heaps, that used to be doted all over the Rhondda, that my Father used to scramble over; with no shoes on his feet, on the way to School every morning. In those same valleys where he met my Mother, she was rich; she had a pair of shoes. They dragged themselves out of that poverty, to make something of themselves and give their kids the start in life that they never had. Maybe that's why I don't suffer fools, or whingers, gladly; but it's sad that society never learns........it's still the rich that exploit the poor and it's still those that have the least that suffer the most. You can take the boy out of the Rhondda, but you can't take the Rhondda out of the boy..........my heart is still there.

[jd.linklater]

A few generations of my ancestors lived in the Rhondda too. They were originally from farming communities in the Brecons but like most, when the land became unproductive and they could no longer earn enough to feed their families they moved South to find work (and what to them was big money) in the mines.

There's a picture in that BBC link of four lads walking down a track, one of my uncles is in that group along with his cousin.  I was shown that photo a few months ago while researching my Family History. Like a big majority of their families and friends they all moved to work in the Midlands coalfields when the Welsh mines started closing, most of them settled in my home town Coventry.  

Amazing to think people regularly used to scrabble around at the base of the slag heaps looking for pieces of coal big enough to burn, none of them would have regarded it as a particularly dangerous thing to do. How times change. 

[al**bear]

Quite close to where I live now, is a small Mining village called PLEAN, I was told by an old neighbour yesterday

That the people of Plean had complained for years about the bing  that loomed over the back of their school, only to be told, like Aberfan that there was nothing to worry about.

In early 67 the Coal Board started tearing down the bing and it was mostly gone in a few months