This blog post is very different from usual. Normally I present thoughts about freedom and equality; republican ideas jostle with reports of political events I have attended. I will admit that some posts deal with particularly obscure and arcane bits of our constitution I find irksome or dangerous. But in the week where we commemorate 50 years of the Aberfan disaster in South Wales I want to relate a few personal reflections and impressions, however fleeting and vague.
When the disaster occurred on 21st October 1966 I was a 5 year old living in Tredegar at the head of the Sirhowy Valley about 10 or 11 miles away from Aberfan. The mines had been worked out in my area but with the South Wales Area NCB maintenance operations still going strong in the town and Pochin service colliery still operating a few miles down the valley, mining was still the main focus. The human memory is a peculiar thing and it is easy to fall into the trap of false consciousness, of memories which are invented but have all the appearance of reality. So trying my best to eliminate those I am left with precious few recollections. As you may expect for a 5 year old the memories are impressionistic rather than of specific situations or events. Whenever I think back to that day the overwhelming feeling is of darkess and anxiety. I can remember nothing of the morning in my little primary school a few hundred yards up a hill from where I lived, but I do recall the afternoon being disrupted with myself and my schoolmates being brought together in the hall. I was allowed to stay up later than normal that evening by my mother, probably until about 8 or 9 o’clock. Two memories are very clear. Firstly listening the news updates on the radio with my mother doing her best to explain what happened. The second seems peculiar. But I remember my mother fishing my father’s wellington boots out of the cupboard to warm them by the fire!
I shall explain the last memory first. Soon after the news started spreading men started arriving to start digging. Because of the nature of the disaster much of the relief relied on sheer musclepower rather than machinery. From the mines and steelworks in the area men were literally finishing their shifts, throwing clothes and tools into cars and setting off for Aberfan. My father was an electrician at Ebbw Vale steelworks on an afternoon shift which finished at 10pm. He never went. Long before he got home there were so many people at Aberfan that they were getting in the way of the professional disaster relief teams and mine rescue crews who had arrived from Merthyr Vale colliery.
Looking back the impressions of darkness and anxiety are understandable. Anxiety I picked up directly from the emotional state of my mother who identified immediately with the loss of children about the same age as myself. The darkness was of two kinds, physical and psychological. As a young child I had no real sense of death. My maternal grandmother, my last remaining grandparent, had died of cancer in 1966 and my idea of death was that people simply left and you never saw them again. The physical sense of darkness came out of the conditions of valley life. The rain which had caused the tip at Aberfan to become unstable would have cast a late autumn gloom over the South Wales valleys for days prior to the event. Living in a valley with the hillsides creating a very high horizon, the lowering clouds would mean that evening drew in early and I can recall days when it hardly brightened at all. Secondly, being allowed to stay up late in mid autumn, a bright kitchen with windows shrouded in darkness is understandable, I do not remember my dad coming home at 10 o’clock in his little Austin A35 car. I guess I simply fell asleep.
I make no claim for these fleeting and faded recollections, apart from a desire to contribute something personal to the commemoration of this week. Maybe that is just egotism, so please excuse my indulgence. I simply offer them as my humble tribute to the 116 children and 28 adults who went to school that day just as I did but never came home. I also dedicate them to another group, those children of Aberfan who did survive that day and remain haunted by awful memories and feelings of guilt. Maybe some historian in the future will find these words of use but I doubt it, insubstantial as they are.
Much later I acquired sense of profound injustice at what happened that day and subsequent events. That will wait for another blog post.
New Leveller 
Aberfan a village, near Merthyr tydvil,
North of the village a mountainous hill.
The coal board built it, and built it with skill
Dark man-made mountain designed for a kill
Warned time after time, one day they would slide
‘They need lowering now!’ the villagers cried
But greedy owners swept protests aside
They wouldn’t do anything till someone had died
I had lived in Aberfan all of my life
Had two loving sons and a loving wife
The tale I will tell still cuts like a knife
A sad tale of woe, bereavement and strife
At five that morning I woke for my shift,
To be there for six, I had to be swift,
The cold foggy air, gave me short shrift
Hated being late and really was miffed
Got there on time, and clocked myself in
I picked up my pit light and snapping tin
Into the cage with the crack and the din
‘Morning, ‘ yelled Tom, with his big cheesy grin
Tom was a good mate, I’d known thirty years
Grew up together, scraped skin, shed our tears
If you needed a friend to dispel fear
Tom was the one you would always want near
Down we descended down into the gloom,
Two mile below ground into the earth’s womb
You get to the bottom, you never assume
Just one wrong step and it could be your tomb
It was ten o clock when the word got round
Something had just happened, something profound
They mentioned the village and school playground
When children were mentioned tools were soon downed
‘Everyone up,’ came the shout down the line
We all grabbed tools headed out of the mine
The news we heard sent shivers down our spine
The slag heap had slid at a quarter past nine
The school was under both debris and spoil
From the mountains stretching up half a mile
We all knew the slag heaps had been tactile
With shovels we ran toward the black bile
The sight that met us was straight out of hell
The slime had swamped from floor to school bell
Women were screaming a grief stricken yell
Hand’s covered with blood from clawing at the shell
Pain, panic and grief were etched on their face
As we started digging at a fast pace
We knew time was precious, it was a race
For come the darkness there’d be no more trace
For the submerged houses it was too late
No one gave thought, as by the school gate
the Grans and Mothers hold hands as they wait
For word of their children, word of their fate
A hole appeared at the front of the school,
the sludge wasn’t so thick there, more of a pool
They wondered how God could be so damn cruel
As children were pulled out, from the cesspool.
One by one they were carried to the gate
Plucked from that hell and a terrible fate
Deeper in the room we could not infiltrate
For the roof was moving under our weight
‘Get back lads!’ the foreman called out in vain
‘Get back lads’ you’re putting the roof under strain
‘Just wait, the helpers are bringing a crane’,
His words fell like stones in the heavy rain.
.
We both had our children there, Tom and I,
We didn’t know how, but we must try and buy
As much time as possible, as time will fly
If we didn’t act quickly, our children would die!
I looked over at Tom, his powerful physique,
I looked at his face, there were two white streaks,
Where tears of anguish had ran down his cheek
His body was strong, but his spirit was weak.
It was almost eleven, more men had come
We were ushered away from the deep chasm
Hearts were broken that terrible Autumn
When spoils of the rich began to succumb
An army of people were now at the scene
Fresh hands were digging, where we had just been
Digging for children all under thirteen
While young volunteers set up a canteen.
My own boys were seven and nine years old,
When I woke today, I couldn’t have foretold,
What today would bring, what it would hold
If I had known, my own soul I’d have sold
I was fearing the worst, I must admit,
Had a bad feeling, since leaving the pit,
Was ready to give up, ready to quit
As parent and husband, I felt unfit.
‘Quiet’ someone cried, but nothing was heard
Just the fall of the rain, not even a bird,
Everything was silent, and nothing stirred
No one dared speak even one single word.
By night there were thousands upon that black tomb
All hope was lost, just bodies to exhume
Over one hundred missing, in those classrooms
And Mothers still waited in dark and gloom
I searched for my wife among the crowd
Pushed through people, called her name out loud
Back to the school gates through people I plowed
Returned to our cottage, with my head bowed.
As I walked in the hall at dead of night,
My wife ran toward me, held me so tight,
‘I tried to find you but you weren’t in sight,
Find you and tell you, the boys were alright’
‘They both had flu symptoms,’ she started to say,
I thought the best thing was to keep them away,
I gave them both mixture- their pain to allay
And it was the last day of term anyway
I didn’t believe it, couldn’t believe my ears,
I fell down on my knees, broke down in tears,
In one loving moment, she’d erased my fears
I prayed to God for the first time in years
Early next morning, from the bedroom I crept,
Looked in on the boys, watched as they slept,
I thought of their lost friends, I could have wept
How their future would change, they had no concept
I stepped from my door, Tom stood outside
That big man fell into my arms and cried
‘there’s no one left, my children have died
I said there’s a chance, but knew I had lied
That was the last time I saw him that week
The outlook was bad and looking so bleak
Children had died in the shadow of that peak
The National coal board hadn’t made a squeak
The After shock
Chairman Lord Robens was in no great hurry
Had a meeting at the University of Surrey,
When told of the disaster, said ‘look, don’t worry,
We’ll get it cleaned up, the coal and the slurry’
They set up a fund for compensation
Millions donated, by a saddened nation,
To the coal board it seemed a mild irritation,
Tried to cover it up with controlled oration.
They used raised funds, to remove their own mess
No thought for the villagers under duress
When the story broke they tried to suppress
No consideration or feeling, no finesse
The survivors don’t laugh don’t go out to play
For fear of upsetting the parents who pray
For the children they lost on that fateful day
The day that God took their loved ones away
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