To avoid all the Aberfan coverage? Am I a wuss?

[EmiliaBassano]

I don't remember this - it was over 20 years before I was born. I know it's important, but can't bear reading the stories because they are too heartbreaking. I find the same with all the coverage about 9/11, Grenfell and stuff. I feel shallow, but I feel sick when I read it, too.

You're not, no. I remember it and even after 60 years they are heartbreaking.

No you're not, it's very traumatic. I have just now been scanning down the BBC news page on it and halfway through I couldn't read any more, it's all terribly tragic. I have previously watched documentaries on it, and it's so shocking. I wasn't in the UK when it happened so only heard about it as an adult.

I was 4, living in South Wales. It was a dull, damp and grey day, and I can remember watching my mum doing the ironing whilst listening to the radio, and she was crying. My 4 year old brain knew something terrible had happened but I couldn’t really understand. But I do remember being frightened for years after whenever we were up in the Valleys and drove past the then unlevelled tips.

No you're not unreasonable, it's unbearable to watch, what little I've seen today has had me in tears. I think it's the worst thing to ever happen in this country. And it shouldn't have happened, it was completely preventable and no-one's ever been held to account for it.

The coverage is really distressing- and like you, I was born 20 years afterwards. I cannot look at it anymore. Dreadful, dreadful tragedy (well, negligence).

It’s absolutely hellish. Like some hideous pied piper taking the village children. The stoicism of the parents interviewed shows how times have changed in relation to showing emotion.

I think we aren't built to hear about all the trauma, death and disasters happening all around the world, as we do in this day and age. I think it shows that you haven't become calloused to things, like some of us have. It's ok to protect your mental health. It's awful, but you can't do anything about it and if it's too distressing, it's totally understandable to look away.

I remember it. I knew people who lost relatives. I still can't watch anything about it.

I am too young to remember it, but my grandmother was teaching elsewhere in South Wales, and one of my Dad's friends drove hus lorry over to help.

I think it's fine to miss it. I don't often listen or watch the news as much as I used to, and my mental health is better for it.

I'm learning Welsh, so I get it in two languages.

Absolutely not. I believe that some people get a thrill from the prurient details of tragedies and they are not the people with the healthiest attitude. You can be aware without listening to the detail.

I was a very small child, but remember it happening. Can’t watch things about it as it’s too heartbreaking.

Its sad but is a story that needs to be told and a time to reflect and remember the tragedy of that day. Doesn’t mean you need to watch or read if you find it upsetting. Personally I always watch 9/11 documentaries on 9/11 as I feel that we should never forget these things, whether we were alive or not at that time.

I remember it. It was so, so sad.

I remember my mum being in tears when I got home from school. We lived in a Fife coalmining town and we had a view of a pit bing [slag heap] from our living room window, beyond our garden. Previously, we could also see the pit wheel.

The NCB removed the pit wheel, but left the bings and the mine shafts. I recall a neighbour's son climbing down a shaft to retrieve a kite: it's a wonder he wasn't killed. The NCB had a lot to answer for.

I'll add that my maternal great-uncle was killed down the pit when he was only 17. His brother and father died of mining related illnesses. My mum's other grandfather was killed in a local mining disaster when he was in his early 40s.

Dad escaped death in a mining cave-in. When the Chile cave-in happened in 2010, Dad was rooted to the news until the men were rescued.

When I was a teenager, I recall a secondary school teacher (who purported to be a ataunch Labour Party supporter) complaining to our class about the miners looking for a wage increase. He was from the west of Scotland and presumably didn't know the history of the area and hadn't bothered to find out about the children sitting in front of him.

"Do you honestly think that a miner deserves to get the same pay as a teacher?"

I think it was the only time I was ever cheeky to a teacher: "Not much chance of the roof falling in on you at work, is there?"

Anything mining related hits home with me, but Aberfan has to be the worst.

So very traumatic I read some of the stories and had to stop the man who spoke about only knowing his daughter for 8 years how we would have liked to have known her longer just broke me.