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(Photo: The Aberfan memorial at Bryntaf Cemetery by Stephen McKay courtesy of wikipedia).
1966 was not a good year for me, despite England winning the World Cup, it saw the Aberfan disaster happen and about two weeks later my father died, both were total surprises to the thirteen year old child that I was.
I can remember coming home from school and seeing the black and white images on the television as my mother watched the news. Seeing the despair on the faces of the rescuers will remain etched in my memory for as long as I live.
Aberfan was a small mining village a few miles from Merthyr Tydfil in the South Wales valleys, through which flowed the River Taff. Though born in Cardiff, it was very near this same river and at the time, I was living even closer to it, a mere 250 yards away. As a Welsh woman I feel a connection to every one of the 144 lives lost the day the coal tip collapsed and 40,000 cubic metres of rock and shale slurry buried Pant Glas school. Tomorrow, 21st October is the fiftieth anniversary of that dreadful day.
Today, I received a CD of Cantata Memoria by Karl Jenkins a tribute in music to the lost souls of the disaster. Tomorrow, I shall make some time to listen to it as my own tribute to the children and their teachers who perished. I shall also probably remember my dad who although we knew was unwell, we didn't realise he had so few days left to live. I wonder what my relationship would have been with him as an adult, especially an adult female - I shall never know, anymore than we shall know if any of those children would have become world famous in the arts or sciences.
Comments
coincidences and crying
It's a coincidence that 144 men, women, and children were killed in the bombing of the Murrah Building in Okla. City in 1995. Like you, I was glued to the TV in those first horrible hours. We have a shared road, one that in this day and age is far too-well traveled.
But having been struck by the numerical coincidences my mind started comparing the two, so separated in time and space. Aberfan killed far more children than adults. Okla. City killed far more adults than children. One came about due to (I presume) a failure of the mine owners. The other came about due to a man's hatred. Reprehensible actions in both cases.
However, I then started comparing the two using the standard of comparison humans employee - ranking. Was one bigger/smaller/better/worse than the other. Aberfan cost the lives of over a hundred children, and as you pointed out we have no way of knowing what those children might have done with their lives. Okla. City cost the lives of fewer children, but many parents. So many children having to grow up without the benefit of having the guidance and love of those lost. What those parentless children have done if that parent had been there.
So, again, using one of humanity's standard that children lost seem so much worse than an adult's death, it would seem that Aberfan was worse than Okla. City. But flipping that on it's head does that mean Okla. City was better than Aberfan? How do we rank the two? And what about things since then? How about 9/11, where thousands were killed or injured? Does placing it in a ranking mean that both Aberfan and Okla. City. are somehow better.
I have problem just phrasing that question. I really wish that humanity would reach the point where even one life lost matters. But until that mythical goal is reached we morn each incident as they happen, and vow 'We Will Never Forget'. But inevitably time dims our memories, and a new generation rises that have no idea what happened that they should never forget. Such is the nature of humanity.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
There is no such thing as a better death
Please... cry... then wipe your tears. Consider any loss, large or small, close or far, a tragedy that should be mourned.
The poet John Donne was right.
Persephone
Non sum qualis eram
semantics here
a recent tragedy here, a 15 y/o was killed by a falling tree over the weekend.
I would say this accidental death is easier for the parents / family / friends to grieve than a drive by shooting, mugging gone wrong or suicide would be.
that would make his cause of death a better death than the other options.
otherwise, I totally agree, cry, express the loss you feel / felt than pick up your life and continue living. Maybe adding a cause to your life to make changes in society to help reduce the type of incident that caused your grief.
Stupidity is a capital offense. A summary not indictable.
I think you misunderstand me
I was not trying to rank these and other disasters. I was pointing out that people have a tendency to try to top other people. "You think that's big, why I saw one that was so big . . . ." And it is a sad truth that people will flip that scale upside down and try to 'one up' people in the size, etc. of disasters. " You think that was bad! Why I saw . . . ." That is something that I personally dislike. To that person, community, nation what they experienced is the worst ever.
Then I was (futilely) wishing the day would come when we place a high value on a single life, that the loss of one (black, white, poor, rich, whatever) was important. That each loss was treated as the disaster it is. Because to somebody it is a disaster.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
Changes in policy
We honor the dead, especially the innocent dead, who had not idea that such could happen. Have there been changes in the way they pile that material to prevent a future occurrence? You have my deepest condolences.
Much peace
Gwen
The spoil heap that collapsed
should never have been there in the first place. It was built on top of a natural spring. There had been complaints about small slips already entering the village. The people managing the tip were not qualified to do the job and the pit owners, The National Coal Board (part of the Government as it was Nationalised in 1948 or thereabouts) didn't take any responsibility. This deeply wrankled the Miners because the government of the time was their party, the Labour Party.
I can remember seeing the pictures on TV as my Grandfathers. My family came from the Valleys. My Grandad worked in a mine only a few miles from Aberfan before WW2. I can remember the tears in his eyes as we watched the scene on TV.
I also remember.
Aberfan was a huge (and avoidable) tragedy which was felt deeply in my home town because it was surrounded by pits and largely relied on coal mining to survive. I remember the collections and the stupid question asked of the men digging into the avalanche of spoil by the media.
I hadn't realised tomorrow is the actual anniversary because of the reporting of the Cantata's first performance a week or so back led me to believe it had happened on the date. I'll make the effort to listen to it. My mother died in 1944 and I can only just remember her so I totally understand how you find the Aberfan disaster and your father's dying are so linked.
I read last week about a child who was kept off school that day because of a minor ailment and was at his grandmother's. The house was buried and both were killed. If he'd been in school he would have survived because his classroom escaped the avalanche. Shit happens to all of us but some shit is a lot worse than others.
Robi
October 1966
I have just checked back in my Seaman's 'Discharge book'.
I was sailing around the Eastern seaboard or up the great lakes at that time. Not having my own short-wave or long-wave radio aboard the ship at the time, I never heard anything about it. This was because in those days, I did not mix much with other crewmembers, I kept myself mostly to myself, I was not much interested in the news, and I was too busy chasing the almighty dollar.
I returned to Liverpool that winter and by then the whole thing had passed from the spotlight. The first I really learned about it was when I started at Cardiff university in the early seventies.
Helen, my girlfriend (eventually to become my wife) had a teacher training practical month in a school up the Rhondda valley and she and her friends got to discussing the Aberfan disaster because one of her flatmates was going to do her teaching practice in the newly built replacement school for the village of Aberfan.
Having never heard of the disaster, I innocently asked what the Aberfan disaster was about and her friends just stared at me in disbelief. One of her friends almost went so far as to suggest I was an inhumane beast for putting such an insensitive question to them. They all came from the valleys of South Wales and the issues surrounding the disaster were very raw memories in Wales.
That following weekend, Helen forced me to drive her up to Aberfan so that she could show me the memorial on the hillside. Every child is represented by one of those arches in the photograph and it left me somewhat confused by my own unexpected emotions. At that age, (My early Twenties,) I was pretty much inured to human disasters and calamities but the memorial brought a couple of tears to my eye. Helen noticed this and remarked, "Oh! Then you do have an emotional streak. Well done darling, we'll make a human being of you."
I was too confused and disorientated to take umbrage and we returned to Cardiff in silence as both of us were wrapped up in our own thoughts about it.
I was eight
We heard the news, and it terrified us. We had a pit heap at the end of the school playground, where the ponies would be walked for their time in the sun, and all we could think of was "Are we next?"
I was a kid then so sad high
I was a kid then so sad high ups in NCB cocked up. So sad about it