Aberfan

[Chislenko]

55 years ago today.

The grainy images on our little black and white TV still haunt.

Sleep well children.

 

[Drago]

Just before I was born. Absolutely horrific event.

 

[PeteXXX]

Awful! I went there a few times 10 / 15 years after the disaster. The lack of children in the town was so noticeable 😞

 

[Beebo]

One of my teachers was working in a local school at the time. Not the actual school.
He was part of the rescue team digging with his bare hands. He used to tell us about it, but I don’t think we were old enough to fully understand the impact this sort of thing would have had on him as a young man.
Absolutely horrific.

 

[Accy cyclist]

I remember the BBC newsreader Richard Baker announcing it on a newsflash all those years ago. I was not quite 6 years old, but i'll never forget it!!

 

[numbnuts]

I was 15 and remember it well RIP

 

[KnittyNorah]

I was a student and - in the way of students' lack of much awareness - I am sorry to say that it largely passed me by until I went home at the weekend and found that my parents - both of whom were schoolteachers themselves - were devastated by it all.

 

[gbb]

I would have been 7 or 8, i too remember the black and white tv news, i seem to remember grim grim faces.
Very sad, there are no words really for something so terrible.

 

[FrankCrank]

First news story I can remember. In fact, as a five year old, I thought this was the first news story to ever have been told on TV, such was the impact of seeing those images.

 

[Pale Rider]

Aberfan led to just about the only occasion the Queen has been criticised in her long reign.

Many felt her decision not to visit immediately was an error of judgment.

We are told she accepts the mistake, and views it as one of her biggest regrets.

https://www.townandcountrymag.com/s...h-aberfan-mining-disaster-reaction-the-crown/

 

[Drago]

She wouldnt be able to win. If she had gone she would have been criticised for getting in the way, taking up valuable resources to mind and shepherd her about, and distracting the spotlight from the terrible tragedy. Glad it wasn't my decision to have to make.

 

[annedonnelly]

I've recently finished reading How Green Was My Valley. In that, the narrator (Huw) expressed concern about the slag heaps being constructed above and behind the houses in the village. That was published in 1939, though set around 1900.

I thought about Aberfan as I was reading it.

 

[Davos87]

I was 11 at the time and I clearly remember tv pictures of the rescuers pausing intermittently and falling silent to listen for cries of help from the rubble. Horrible, horrible tragedy.
On an equally horrific note I was talking to an acquaintance of mine who sent me an article about the Victoria Hall tragedy in Sunderland in 1883. I had never heard of it but truly appalling loss of life involving children at what was a happy and celebratory event. Truly shocking.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Hall_disaster

 

[annedonnelly]

I was 11 at the time and I clearly remember tv pictures of the rescuers pausing intermittently and falling silent to listen for cries of help from the rubble. Horrible, horrible tragedy.
On an equally horrific note I was talking to an acquaintance of mine who sent me an article about the Victoria Hall tragedy in Sunderland in 1883. I had never heard of it but truly appalling loss of life involving children at what was a happy and celebratory event. Truly shocking.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Hall_disaster

Yeah, there's a memorial in the park outside the museum in Sunderland. Dreadful tragedy, that with a bit of health & safety wouldn't have happened.

 

[Captain Sensible]

I recall reading that the Coal Board helped themselves to some of the cash raised during the public appeal to help the victims. Apparently their excuse being they needed it to help fund the removal of the slag heaps. DISGUSTING.