On the 21 October 1966, 144 people, 116 of them children, were killed when a tip of coal waste slid onto the village of Aberfan in South Wales.
The history of the tragedy is well documented elsewhere, but briefly for some 50 years up to 1966, millions of cubic metres of excavated mining debris from the National Coal Board’s Merthyr Vale Colliery deposited on the side of Mynydd Merthyr, directly above the village of Aberfan. Huge piles, or ‘tips’, of loose rock and mining spoil was built up over a layer of highly porous sandstone that contained numerous underground springs, and several tips had been built up directly over these springs. Although local authorities had raised specific concerns in 1963 about spoil being tipped on the mountain above the village primary school, these were largely ignored by the NCB’s area management.
Early on the morning of Friday, 21 October 1966, after several days of heavy rain, a subsidence of about 3–6 metres occurred on the upper flank of colliery waste tip No. 7. At 9:15 a.m. more than 150,000 cubic metres of water-saturated debris broke away and flowed downhill at high speed. The slide hit the local school and one hundred and sixteen children were killed. In all one hundred and forty-four people died in the incident and it has left a scar on the memories of those of us who remember the day.
I’r rhai a garwn ac y galarwn o’u colli
These are the names of the 116 children who died that day. Remember them.
Amiette Smith
9 years old
Andrew Rees
14 years old
Angela Vaughan Hopkins
7 years old
Angela Williams
8 years old
Anne Catherine Lee
8 years old
Annette Hughes
9 years old
Anthony David Hill
8 years old
Anthony John Sullivan
10 years old
Anthony Joseph Watkins
10 years old
Anthony Wayne England
8 years old
Arthur O’Brien
8 years old
Avis Elizabeth Sullivan
9 years old
Barbara Eileen Murray
9 years old
Brian Davies
8 years old
Brian Michael Gough
9 years old
Carl Minnett
7 years old
Carol Anderson
9 years old
Carol Ann Carpenter
9 years old
Carol Williams
10 years old
Catherine Elizabeth Evans
3 years old
Cheryl Mortimer
8 years old
Christine George
10 years old
Christine Prosser
9 years old
Corwyn Thomas Reakes
10 years old
Daphne May Fudge
8 years old
David Morgan
9 years old
David Paul Roberts
7 years old
David Trefor Davies
10 years old
David William Williams
8 years old
Dennis Arscott
8 years old
Desmond Carpenter
10 years old
Dwynwen Griffiths
9 years old
Edward Clive Mumford
11 years old
Edwin Davies
8 years old
Edwina Bartlett
9 years old
Eryl Mai Jones
10 years old
Gareth Davies
10 years old
Gareth Evans
3 months old
Geoffrey Derek Needs
10 years old
Gillian Gough
8 years old
Gillian Irene Jones
11 years old
Graham Williams
8 years old
Howard David Prosser
9 years old
Howell Lloyd Evans
7 years old
Ian Dougall
9 years old
Jacqueline Powell
8 years old
Janet Jones
9 years old
Jean Launchbury
10 years old
Jean Winifred Evans
11 years old
Jeanette Lynne Brown
10 years old
Jennifer Haines
8 years old
Jill Elizabeth Parfitt
9 years old
John Anthony King
9 years old
John Islwyn Jones
10 years old
Joseph Wilkshire
8 years old
Julie Jeannine Regan
9 years old
Julie Price
8 years old
June Margaret Williams
10 years old
Karen O’Brien
8 years old
Kay Bowns
10 years old
Keith Williams
9 years old
Kelvin David Andrew
10 years old
Kevin Thomas Jones
9 years old
Layton Kerrie Reakes
9 years old
Linda Anderson
10 years old
Linda Hodkinson
8 years old
Lorraine Rosa Isobel Richards
10 years old
Lynn Harding
9 years old
Malcolm Andrew
8 years old
Maralyn Carol Howells
9 years old
Maralyn Minnett
10 years old
Martine Anne Short
9 years old
Maureen Mary Evans
8 years old
Megan Olwen Robbins
10 years old
Merrill Barnard
11 years old
Michael Collins
10 years old
Michael Jones
13 years old
Michael Fitzpatrick
7 years old
Necia James
9 years old
Norma Mumford
10 years old
Pamela Heaman
10 years old
Patricia Probert
12 years old
Paul Davies
8 years old
Paul Jones
9 years old
Peter Collins
10 years old
Peter Williams
10 years old
Philip Mumford
9 years old
Randolph Tudor
10 years old
Raymond John Collins
14 years old
Richard Phillip Goldsworthy
10 years old
Robert Breeze
10 years old
Robert Coffey
14 years old
Robert Garfield Jones
9 years old
Robert George Minney
10 years old
Robert Orville Jones
8 years old
Roger Colin Summers
7 years old
Roger Dyfrig Hayes
9 years old
Royston Barrett
10 years old
Royston Carl Davies
9 years old
Royston Hodkinson
9 years old
Sandra Leyshon
9 years old
Sandra Pauline Donovan
10 years old
Sharon Lewis
9 years old
Sheila Fitzpatrick
13 years old
Stephen Vaughan Hopkins
10 years old
Susan Jones
9 years old
Susan Mary Crotty
10 years old
Susan Meredith
8 years old
Sylvia Frances Richards
9 years old
Terence Malcolm Davies
10 years old
Thomas Probert
7 years old
Trevor Timothy Gray
9 years old
Valmai Mary Owen
8 years old
Victoria Marie Symonds
10 years old
Vincent Clark Parfitt
13 years old
Yvonne Drage
11 years old
ABERFAN
An unknown village in the vale,
Secluded from the noisome world;
Within its borders, children played and sang,
And, from the hills behind, their echoes rang
While Aberfan lay still, in deep content.
The people lived on coal, black diamonds
Deep hewn by skilled and gallant men.
They knew the risk they ran.
The early morning kiss and tender smile,
So shyly given before the sun broke o’er the hill,
Might always be the last.
Yet down the mine they went.
They toiled below the ground
In lurking darkness.
Their songs and chat accompanied
By menacing sounds of water,
Dripping, dripping, dripping.
They read the signs, ominous and dark
And scrambled skillfully away
Before the roof fell in.
They did not always win.
Entombed were many men
And up above stood women
Praying, waiting, weeping,
Not daring e’en to hope
Much less despair.
This was their lot.
The mine became a tomb
And, in the place of warmth to cheer the heart
It spoke of cold, the chill of death
The insufferable winter in a life of spring.
Then came the day.
The hills of God stood firm.
The man-made heaps of slag
Began to move.
Weight immeasurable,
Force irresistible,
Crushing all before.
A farm, the homes of men below,
And, in their cruel and senseless spate
They could not even wait
For little children to escape.
The Junior school was crushed.
Pant Glas with all its hopes,
Its dreams, its noble expectations;
Pant Glas, built by the toil of men below
To open up new worlds for young ones up above;
Pant Glas – how fair a name! -
Was buried ‘neath the slime and mud
Brought from the mine.
The bud of life
Was utterly destroyed.
The mine had won again,
And seemed to mock
All human striving
To build for children the promise
Of a fairer and a kinder world.
Alas! was it all in vain?
Merthyr Vale – the Martyrs vale!
Why should the martyr be a child?
Why claim the young for sacrifice?
Wherein lies guilt and blame?
On whom should fall the shame?
We do not know.
We only know
That Aberfan no longer
Lies secluded in the hills of Wales.
It is the centre of the world;
The world in which the tales
Of human courage, human grief are told,
Deeds of valour wrought,
Nobility achieved, but never sought,
A world of sorrow and of cruel fate
Made splendid by the simple, now the great.
For generations yet to come,
When tales are told
Of courage, human pity,
Noble grief, majestic sorrow,
When men recall
The heroism of frantic men
Undaunted in the face
Of ruthless, blind and senseless slag,
With simple pride and uplifted heart
Then shall they say to every man:
“This was the glory of Aberfan”
The late Reverend Dr. Emlyn Davies of Aberfan
29 October, 1966