Aberfan

[CadiFfan]

Please, just for one minute this morning, close your eyes and think of those who lost their lives and their families

❤️

24 hours later and the school would've been empty for half term will always be one of the most heart breaking twists of fate.

🕯🕯🕯.

Also the book A Terrible Kindness by Jo Browning Wroe, is about Aberfan after the tragedy and spanning the following decade. My words won't be able to do it justice but it is by far and away the most beautiful book I have ever read.

And they had no justice. Nothing has changed, there is still so rarely justice for true victims.

So sad and shocking . Will be thinking today especially , of all those impacted by the terrible tragedy .

Was so devastating for so many reasons , the tragic loss of so many children , the impact on the community , the fact that it was entirely preventable and the aftermath when the NCB and the government didn’t take any accountability .

It was shocking also to read that £150,000 ( a huge sum at the time ) was also taken from the donations to pay for the clear up .

The treatment of those affected and the poor recognition of their mental health .

The treatment of those affected and the poor recognition of their mental health .

That was the 60s. No trauma or bereavement counselling, in fact no counselling at all. My father died the following year and we were left to deal with it as best we could.

What was utterly enraging about the way the parents were treated was to get compensation (a month's wages for a miner) they had to demonstrate that they loved their children.*

*The way they were treated was all enraging, but especially that.

Was going to mention The Crown episode. It was so horrifying to watch. I also wasn't born.

Absolutely - the Charity Commission asking 'How close were you to your dead child'? - the inhuman bastards... 😡

I was just a baby - we lived 30 miles down the road - my Dad had gone off to work, and my mother hadn't heard the news - suddenly he came running back into the house, snatched me up from where I was sleeping, and hugged me until I cried... 😢

I'm American, but I was attending university in the UK when it happened, and I remember it vividly. I had arrived only a few weeks before. It was, and continues to be, so deeply sad, the event itself and the aftermath. There were several Welsh students in my hall of residence and several from mining communities in other parts of the UK, and I remember their trauma and outrage especially.

I remember when the Queen went there a week or so later, she was presented with a bouquet of flowers with a card attached that read "From the remaining children of Aberfan."

The National Coal Board murdered the victims. The government aided and abetted in the cover up, then took money from the donations to pay for the clean up. They all got away with it. Even today 120 mines are still awaiting inspection, that’s 60 years later.

That lucky escape must really haunt you.

It's close to me too. My dad went to that school but left two years before. My cousin married a woman who lost a sibling in the disaster, and both my grandfathers were there trying to dig the survivors out.

I wasn't born but I think of those children often. And the village has never recovered. Visiting as a child in the 80's I could sense the sadness, and that was before I knew anything about what happened.

My FiL was there. 17 years old, newly into the Navy, sent to dig. It really affected him. Its the only thing in his whole 35 year Naval career that he won't talk about. We were offered a house there but we turned it down cos he wouldn't visit us. He'll be avoiding the tv today and MiL will keep him occupied.

It is absolutely mind blowing that money was taken from the public donations for the clean up.

Just watched Aberfan - The Green Hollow on BBC iplayer ( 59 minutes ) . Very moving re-enactment with Michael Sheen , Eve Myles and others . It was from the point of view of fictionalised characters, but based on real life accounts . Definitely worth a watch .

Story after heartbreaking story
pain like no other
and the way the families were treated
god there are people I hope are rotting in hell
right now

Long time before I was born but horrific and absolutely outrageous nobody has been held to account, all these years later. I doubt the big decision makers are still alive to be held accountable now.

I remember reading about one of the teachers who died. His parents were happy he was in a safe job as his brother was a firemen..and then lost his life :(

So many sad stories! Such a awful tragedy that really could've been avoided if one of the concerns were taken seriously..heartbreaking

I wasn't born, my parents were primary school aged. I think I'd heard of it, but only in a "oh it was a tragedy that wouldn't happen here" way, until I watched The Crown.

Im watching a programme about it on ITV now and sobbing. So much heartbreak.

It was before I was born but it’s just awful isn’t it. I always think about the cruelty of the timing. A bit earlier in the morning or later in the day or the next day or week the school would have been empty. The devastation and then the NCB and government responses were just horrendous

Sharing again as a beautiful book and very worth reading. Just awful. 😞

Aberfan is just heartbreaking beyond words. I cannot imagine the devastation for the parents and families, or what it must have been like for the children who survived, having to return to school and grow up in a community where so many of their friends were simply gone. The childhood they knew ended that morning.

And what makes it even harder to bear is the injustice of it all. The people responsible for the failures that led to this catastrophe were never held criminally accountable.

Those children should have been safe at school. Their parents should never have had to bury them. And the survivors deserved a childhood that wasn't forever marked by such unimaginable loss. Sixty years, on they will not be forgotten 💔 .

❤️

I wasn't born when it happened (my father would have been 16 himself) but first heard about it as a very young child

I didn't fully grasp what had happened but remembered the name and years later,caught up with it on YouTube (and again on BBC Iplayer tonight)

The people in charge-unfeeling,cruel and evil bastards

They didn't do one thing right in the aftermath

I mean having to prove how much you loved your own child,having money taken from the fund and having to fight to get the heaps moved (and not just the tips)

I cannot imagine what it must have been like for the familes,having to look out of their windows every single day and seeing what killed their children,knowing the higher ups didn't give a toss and having to fight while grieving

It's like they thought 'they are only working class,uneducated morons and they should shut up and put up'

I guarantee if that had been their homes,children and community,it would have been the exact opposite

God bless all that died,their relatives and all that where affected

The survivors did you all proud in their fight for some form of justice

We must never forget them

I had a cousin who died in the school. I was 5 at the time living just over the border in Herefordshire.

I remember my parents being devastated, and the impact on all my Welsh side of the family in particular.

Heartbreaking stuff, never to be forgiven or forgotten.

The NCB were utter bastards.

I’m from a very different part of the country but my family have strong mining connections, I was born many years after but my mum always told me of aberfan being the first time she had ever seen my grandmother cry, it cast a very long shadow over a generation, I’m in my 40s but I find it very affecting and my heart breaks for those children and families.

when I watched the episode of the Crown I was pretty much hysterical, DH had to ask if he should turn the TV off

A whole generation of that community wiped out. Horrifying and tragic.John Humphreys, who covered it for the BBC spoke of it on a previous anniversary. Unsurprisingly it has haunted him ever since.

I watched a documentary about it some years ago. I think it was called Aberfan. But with it being the 60th anniversary, I think they’re showing programmes about it to commemorate it. The documentary I saw was so sad. I think they said that if it had happened a week later, it would’ve been half term and the school would’ve closed. It was a few months before I was born. I asked my dad about it and he said it was awful and had wiped out an entire generation. How does a community come back from something like that?😢