Remembering the injustice of Aberfan

 

 

Today I  once again mark the tragic day when  on Friday 21 October 1966, a terrible disaster struck the close-knit and thriving  coal mining village of Aberfan in  the South Wales Valleys, a tragedy which still stuns those of a certain age, and which has lessons still very relevant to new generations.

For decades leading up to 1966, excavated mining debris from the National Coal Board's Merthyr Vale Colliery had been deposited on the side of Mynydd Merthyr, directly above Aberfan,  onto highly porous sandstone that contained numerous underground springs.

On this morning  21I October 1966 it was raining, as  hard and unrelenting as it had been for days, running into weeks. As the children left the coal-fire warmth of home they emerged into streets shrouded with a dense, cold fog.

Mothers waved goodbye from the doorstep, never imagining in their worst nightmares that it would be for the last time. 

The 240 pupils of the Victorian red brick Pantglas Junior School wound their way through the gullies, the back lanes of the miners’ terrace houses, crunching over layers of sodden clinker swept from the hearth and tipped there on a daily basis. They were excited. At midday the half-term holiday would begin. 

And so the world turned in Aberfan much as it had done for the past 100 years, when the community burgeoned around the Merthyr Vale colliery which began in 1869.

At around quarter past nine disaster struck, an avalanche raced down the steep hill a black tidal wave that would engulf everything in its path in a catastrophic tragedy. It would smother a farm, around twenty houses, demolish Pantglas Junior School and severely damage the Secondary School. It is a mercy that lessons in the secondary school did not start until 9:30, meaning that many of those children were still walking towards the building at the time of the landslide. The eye-witnesses report that when the landslide stopped there was complete silence: for example a local hairdresser who witnessed the landslide reported that “In that silence you couldn’t hear a bird or a child”  

Immediately desperate parents rushed to the scene, many digging through the rubble with their bare hands, trying to rescue the buried children. Police from Merthyr Tydfil arrived on the site, volunteers rushed to the village including miners from local collieries and other pits across South Wales. Conditions remained treacherous with a large amount of water and mud still flowing down the slope. Some children were pulled out alive in the first hour, but no survivors were pulled out alive out of that sticky black tomb after 11 am. Emergency services workers and volunteers continued their rescue efforts but it was nearly a week before all the bodies were recovered.Though many of them have now also passed, the horrific memories of Aberfan would haunt the first responders who came to the aid of the survivors for the rest of their lives. 

The final death toll was 144, including 116 children between the ages of 7 and 10. It was a whole week before all the bodies were recovered. Most of the victims were interred at Bryntaf Cemetery in Aberfan in a funeral held on 27 October 1966, attended by more than 2,000 people.

The shock  that was felt went beyond South Wales too. The television coverage allowed a collective witnessing of the disaster and turned it into a national tragedy. Parents, children, mining communities, Welsh exiles, people who had been evacuated to the area during the Second World War – so many people across Britain and worldwide felt a deep personal empathy and sympathy with those who suffered in the disaster. The surviving 50,000 letters of condolence sent to the village are a testament to that sympathy.The writings show of the warmth of the nation and its people. 

This horror was compounded and made even more poignant as news emerged of previous warnings and previous slides that had been brushed aside. The National Coal Board's(NCB) area management had been made aware of the concerns regarding the tipping of spoil above the primary school, because in 1964  local councillor Gwyneth Williams,  had warned that if there were a landslip it would threaten the school and the children within it. And just two years before the disaster two mothers had given a petition to the school, with concerns over flooding, and also passed it to the local council.  Waterworks engineer DCW Jones also sent a letter to a colleague and the National Coal Board in 1963, expressing concern about the tip.  Even the headmaster, who would  perish in the disaster, had issued warnings about the dangers of the tip.  Despite all this  the NCB's area management did not adequately act upon these concerns. 

Did the NCB have the decency to acknowledge their blame, to bow their head in shame, like hell no, but we were to  learn sadly far too late that the NCB  was ostensibly a capitalist organisation more concerned with profit than lives.. Also some in the media disgraced  themselves. One reporter was heard asking a child to cry for hr dead friends as it would make a good picture. It is not difficult to understand how grief morphed into a deep, visceral anger.

The Rt. Hon. Lord Robens of Woldingham, a former trade unionist and Labour politician whom the Macmillan government had appointed chairman of the National Coal Board, arrived 36 hours later, having first gone to Guildford to be installed as chancellor of Surrey University. He told a TV reporter that the slide had been due to 'natural unknown springs' beneath the tip and that nothing could have been done to prevent the slide. This was not true, the springs had been known about and were marked on maps of the area. Yet the NCB had continued to tip on top of these springs. The potential danger posed by the tip to Pantglas school had also been previously acknowledged. There had also been previous incidents of tip instability in South Wales that would have given clear information on the very real dangers posed.

Lord Robens  also claimed that it was too expensive to remove the tips, with an estimated cost of £3 million pounds.  In response, the community of Aberfan formed a Tip Removal Committee to actively seek out contractors for estimates to remove the tips.  Eventually the tips were removed by the NCB, but using £150,000 that Lord Robens appropriated from the disaster fund.  Understandably, this caused long-term resentment in the community.  In 1997, this sum (but without interest) was repaid to the fund by the UK government. 

Prime Minister Harold Wilson, who had reached Aberfan 24 hours before Robens, ordered an inquiry under the Tribunals of Inquiry Act 1921, headed by a judge assisted by an engineer and a planning lawyer.

The subsequent tribunal placed blame for the disaster upon the National Coal Board stating in its damning conclusion: 'The Aberfan disaster is a terrifying tale of bungling ineptitude by men charged with tasks for which they were totally unfitted'.

Nevertheless, the top management of the NCB tried to give the impression at the inquiry that they had 'no more blameworthy connection than the Gas Board'. The NCB wasted up to 76 days of inquiry time by refusing to admit the liability that they had privately accepted before the inquiry had started. The tribunal called this 'nothing short of audacious'. This may be the strongest language ever used in a tribunal report about a UK public body.

The Aberfan inquiry of 1967 stated: ‘Our strong and unanimous conclusion is that the Aberfan disaster could and should have been prevented’.Blame  for the disaster rests upon  the National Coal Board. The legal liabilities of the National Coal Board to pay compensation for the  personal injury  fatal or otherwise) and  damage to property is incontestable and uncontested."  

Shouts of 'Murderers!; were heard as the names of the child victims were read out at the public enquiry. One grief stricken father determined to oppose  the official causes of this child's death- 'by asphyxia and multiple injuries' insisted that the cause of death on the death certificate should read "Buried Alive by the National Coal Board".

Unbelievably, the Charity Commission opposed the plan for a flat rate of compensation to the bereaved families, instead suggesting that for payment to be made, parents should have to prove that they had been ‘close’ to their dead children, and were thus ‘likely to be suffering mentally’.

Meanwhile, Aberfan villagers lived in fear that tip no.4 and tip no.5 situated above tip no.7 might start to slide as well. The NCB refused to pay to remove them, and the Labour government wouldn’t make it pay. Instead the money was taken from the disaster fund – an act later described as unquestionably unlawful by charity law experts. 

A section of the report condemned the behaviour of Lord Robens:"For the National Coal Board, through its counsel, thus to invite the Tribunal to ignore the evidence given by its Chairman was, at one and the same time, both remarkable and, in the circumstances, understandable. Nevertheless, the invitation is one which we think it right to accept." 

A few weeks later,  Lord Robens offered to resign. The minister, Richard Marsh, refused to accept his resignation.Havingg led the Coal Industry through a then rare strike-free period he was considered far to valuable to Harold Wilson's Labour Government to let go.And so the people  pf Aberfan, were left to deal with their tragedy virtually alone.

The Commons debated the disaster in October 1967. The debate was painful and inconclusive. But at least Aberfan made the dangers of ignoring workplace risks and the catastrophic effects on both occupational and public health and safety all too obvious.

 The Wilson government found the NCB guilty, but the price they placed on each small head was just £500.  Worldwide, people were less insensitive, donations poured in daily and a trust fund was set up, that attracted donations of £1,750,000 (equivalent to about £30 million today), with money being received in the form of more than 90,000 contributions from over 40 countries.  This fund distributed the money in a number of ways, including direct payments to the bereaved, the construction of a memorial, repairs to houses, respite breaks for villagers and the construction of a community centre.  However, the fund itself attracted considerable controversy.  First, when the fund was created it did not include any representatives from Aberfan itself;  and another insult ensued. The bereaved families were not thought to be competent enough to distribute the funds. The grieving families were outraged. The villagers took it upon themselves to form a Parents and Residents' Association, and their solicitors eventually persuaded bureaucrats to include five representatives from Aberfan. The ten officials who were not from Aberfan accepted highly paid salaries from the fund.

The Government of the day was also extremely insensitive to the victims families, and people would have to wait for years for compensation. It was also to  the eternal shame of Lord George Thomas of Tonypandy that he did not do more to support the people of Aberfan, and it was the shame of the establishment that funds raised for the disaster were used to move the slag heaps from the school. Thomas many believed was more interested in toadying up to Royalty than supporting the people of the valleys. Perhaps what moved Welsh Labour to take some action were the fear of other voices speaking out. Plaid Cymru MP, Gwynfor Evans elected in 1966 suggested that had the slag heap  had fell on Eton or a school in the Home Counties more would have been done. 

The security of Labour’s hold on south Wales and the governments shameful marginalisation of the village’s needs after the disaster meant he was probably quite right. Indeed, the disaster played a key role in convincing some in Wales that both the nationalised coal industry and Labour governance were no longer operating in the interests of the working-class communities they were supposed to represent.

Aberfan  at least added to a growing sense that the risks the public were exposed to by industry had to be controlled. This feeling eventually led to the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act (HSWA) 1974 which aims to protect both workers and non-workers from the risks of workplace activities. 

Indeed, the HSWA notably requires that employers must safeguard people not in their employment. This includes members of the public, contractors, patients, customers, visitors and students. This may be seen as Aberfan’s legacy. Unbelievably, the committee which effectively led to the creation of the HSWA was chaired by none other than Lord Robens! 

Earlier legislation such as the Factories Acts focused on specific industries or workplaces. This meant over 5 million workers had no Health & Safety protection – as well as the generally ignored public. The law was then more concerned with making sure machinery was safe! 

One key feature of the 1972 Robens Committee Report that is echoed in today’s Health & Safety is the principle of consultation. So whilst we can be comforted by the fact that legislation is more demanding and the safety of people is put first, history tells us that we must never be complacent, take the example of Hillsborough for instance. .

Today  we remember the people of Aberfan, their collective loss, a community that is still profoundly affected by this disaster and injustice, having paid the dirty price of coal,  one in three survivors still suffering  from Post traumatic stress,  over 50 years after this tragic event took place. The community of the Welsh town was deeply traumatised – the psychological and emotional effects rippled from one generation to the next, people felt guilty that they were left alive, they did not feel like survivors, cases of children not being allowed to play in the street, in case it upset other parents. 

What happened at Aberfan on 21 October 1966 left an indelible mark on the valleys of south Wales. Even today, the name Aberfan evokes sadness and contemplation. Most British people born before 1960 remember what they were doing when they heard the tragic news. 

The community suffered a second devastating blow with the closure of Merthyr Vale Colliery, Aberfan’s main employer, in 1989 and  along with the rest of the disinherited industrialised south Wales Valleys, has struggled with high unemployment and its incumbent social problems.

The devastating loss caused by the tragedy, as well as the impact it had on not only survivors, but the Aberfan community for generations, will never be forgotten. and the sores and wounds of this tragedy are now forever  ingrained in the memories  and feelings of the people of Wales because of the collective loss of a generation that was wiped out.There are thousands upon thousands of Welsh people with personal or family connections to the coal industry, and for them the disaster is not simply something that happened in another time and another place. It is part of their own family history. So today again we  try not to forget  the children and adults who died, this human tragedy, that  many say could easily have been  prevented. 

The disaster also summed  up the relationship Welsh society has with its coal mining heritage. At one level, there is an immense popular pride in the work miners undertook and the sacrifices they endured. There is also a recognition that it was coal that made modern Wales. Without it, communities such as Aberfan would not have existed at all. Indeed, the knowledge that it was their labour that created the aste above the village added guilt to the grief felt by some bereaved fathers. 

Aberfan is now known  today as one  of one of Wales worst mining disasters in it's history,but brought back memories of the pit disasters of Senghennydd (1913 - 439 killed)  https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2016/10/senghennyd-mining-disaster-lest-we.htmland Gresford (1934 - 263 killed) https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2016/09/gresford-colliery-disaster.html  

and the numerous less-known accidents that killed and maimed individual miners. Such fatalities continued to occur in the wake of 1947 but miners accepted the dangers inherent in their occupation. Aberfan however was different. This time it was their children that were killed, and by implication, a part of the future was lost,  because of mans greed.  It is important to note that no employee of the NCB was ever disciplined for the breaches that caused the disaster.

Like  the Hillsborough victims, the people of Aberfan were let down by the very institutions that owed them a duty of care, and just like at Hillsborough those institutions sought to obstruct the search for truth and the solace it might provide. 

And, as with Hillsborough, justice was a long time coming. More than three decades later the Charity Commission apologised, and a Labour Government under Tony Blair eventually paid back to the Disaster Fund the money taken from it in 1966 by the NCB. 

Today as we remember the people of Aberfan, their collective loss, a community that is still profoundly affected by this disaster, Lest we forget, the lessons of  Aberfan, that still holds a profound relevance today. They touch on issues of public accountability, responsibility, competence and transparency. Aberfan was a man-made disaster. This is a fact that often needs underlining. There was nothing “natural” about it, nothing freakish about the geology of Aberfan, nothing uniquely unforeseeable about the deadly slide. It happened because of a mix of negligence, arrogance and incompetence for which no individual was punished or even held to account.so as we remember today lets not forget the shocking way these families were treated by a system that failed to value them.

The disaster was dramatized for the first time onscreen in the third season of The Crown; the episode, titled “Aberfan,” details the day leading up to the tragedy and its aftermath, as the town’s surviving inhabitants dig through the rubble and eventually receive a visit from Queen Elizabeth (Olivia Colman)

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh visited Aberfan on 29 October to pay their respects to those who had died. Their visit coincided with the end of the main rescue phase; only one contracting firm remained in the village to continue the last stages of the clear-up. 

Marjorie Collins, an Aberfan woman who lost her son in the disaster, remembered the queen’s visit in a 2015 interview with ITV: “They were above the politics and the din and they proved to us that the world was with us, and that the world cared.” Another mother told ITV that no one judged the queen for her delayed response. “We were still in shock, I remember the Queen walking through the mud,” she said. “It felt like she was with us from the beginning.” 

Leon Rosselson  one of England's most respected songwriters wrote the following  song ‘Palaces of Gold’ in response to news of the disaster at Aberfan. It appeared on his 1968 album A Laugh, a Song, and a Hand-Grenade:

Palaces of Gold - Leon Rosselson

If the sons of company directors,
And judges’ private daughters,
Had to got to school in a slum school,
Dumped by some joker in a damp back alley,
Had to herd into classrooms cramped with worry,
With a view onto slagheaps and stagnant pools,
Had to file through corridors grey with age,
And play in a crackpot concrete cage.

Buttons would be pressed,
Rules would be broken.
Strings would be pulled
And magic words spoken.
Invisible fingers would mould
Palaces of gold.

If prime ministers and advertising executives,
Royal personages and bank managers’ wives
Had to live out their lives in dank rooms,
Blinded by smoke and the foul air of sewers.
Rot on the walls and rats in the cellars,
In rows of dumb houses like mouldering tombs.
Had to bring up their children and watch them grow.

In a wasteland of dead streets where nothing will grow.

I’m not suggesting any kind of a plot,
Everyone knows there’s not,
But you unborn millions might like to be warned
That if you don’t want to be buried alive by slagheaps,
Pit-falls and damp walls and rat-traps and dead streets,
Arrange to be democratically born
The son of a company director
Or a judge’s fine and private daughter.

 

Memory of the disaster remains at the fore in Aberfan.and .the memorial is quietly observed every year unless there is a key anniversary.Here is an evocative poem written  at the time  by local poet Ron Cook.

Where Was God - Ron Cook

Where was God that fateful day
At the place called Aberfan.
When the world stood still and the mountain
Moved through the folly of mortal man.
In the morning hush so cold and stark
And grey skys overhead.
When the mountain moved its awesome mass
To leave generations of dead.
Where was God the people cried
Their features grim and bleak.
Somewhere on their knees in prayer
And many could not speak.
The silence so still like something unreal
Hung on the morning air.
And people muttered in whisper tones
Oh God this isn’t fair.
The utter waste of childhood dreams
Of hope and aspirations.
A bitter lesson to be learnt for future generations

But where was God the people cried.
The reason none could say
For when the mountain moved its awesome mass.
God looked the other way.

 The Aberfan Memorial Garden was created on the site of Pantglas School and was opened in 1970.  A section of the school playground wall has been retained in the Memorial Garden while the other walls evoke the former layout of the school. 

In 2019, the Memorial Garden underwent major renovations, principally replacing all the old walls. The National Botanic Garden of Wales was involved in designing and planting the current bee-friendly garden. It includes commemorative trees presented by the Queen and the Prince of Wales, another planted by local schoolchildren on the 50th anniversary, and a recently added tree dedicated to the teachers and staff at the school.  

The Memorial Garden design incorporates reclaimed and recycled materials, such as stone from disused local bridges for the walls, and benches made from recycled plastic bags, which also reduced the level of maintenance required. 

At the Aberfan Cemetery Memorial, which was renovated extensively in 2007, most of the victims are buried side by side, with each grave marked with linked archways carved in pearl white granite.The names of all 144 victims are inscribed on a large granite cross at the Cemetery Memorial, where there is also a separate enclosed garden for quiet reflection and offering a long-awaited. redemption from so much pain that was inflicted on this cruel October morning all those years ago. 

I conclude this post with a poem I wrote a few years ago

Cofiwch Aberfan/ Remember Aberfan

On October 21 1966

a ticking timebomb of slurry

left a community scarred

angels laughter forever lost

buried deep in the wounds of history

my nation mourns with anger 

bitterness and shame

after the spoils of injustice

drowned a community in coal

left generations in ruin

our tears keep on flowing

never ever  forgiving.

  

Cofiwch Aberfan : This clock stopped ticking at 9.13 on the morning of October 21,1966