Aberfan: The Green Hollow

Never in my life have I ever seen anything like this.

I hope that I shall never, ever see anything like it again.

For years, of course, miners have been used to having roll calls

whenever there's been a pit disaster.

Today, for the first time in history,

the roll call was for the miners' children.

Ahh. How to talk about it.

That's been a struggle from the very start.

When something like that happens,

a village, a person...

they're bound to go dark.

They did their best, they really did.

Psychologists offered to the community -

educational and clinical.

But all that, those processes, they were still in their infancy.

And sometimes - well, right then, straight after,

isn't when you need 'em.

I remember, for example, the one appointed to me,

he'd say, "Don't think about bad things, like what happened,

"but happy things, like your birthday."

My birthday!

How could he have known?

There was no worse thing.

I'd been looking forward to mine -

20, 30 friends at a party.

But then, when the date came,

there were only three, four of us about,

and that's when it really sunk in.

My friends - they'd been wiped out.

The journeys will be starting soon.

You can't see them, down here in the street,

but once they're up and running

their sound is all through the village -

last thing I hear before going to sleep,

and first thing, too, just after I wake.

Or when we're playing down the river, or in school, on a break.

Rumble they do, and clang.

Metal wheels on metal tracks.

Drams they call 'em, too,

carrying the spoil and the shale from down by the pit,

across the black bridge

and all the way up to the top of the tip.

Number seven - that's the one they're going to now.

Even if you were there, though, on the mountain, I mean,

you'd still only hear them,

wouldn't see them - not till the cranes, at least.

Not with this fog, like a cloud in the street.

It's dark. I can still tell it's thick.

The way the streetlights blur out, and how I can't see the ridge.

If I could, that would be darker again,

like ink spilt on ink.

And above it, just the moon -

a harvest one in a week or two.

Will says they'll be putting a man on it soon.

He means the Americans, but I don't know.

I think the Russians might get there first.

They're launching Lunik 12 tomorrow.

Like a spinning top it is, with spikes all over.

Putting it into orbit, if they can.

That's what Dad says -

"Like a moon for a moon, but made by man."

Mad about science, my Tomos, always following them rockets.

Which is fine by me.

Better by far he's looking up there to the darkness of space,

than down to the blackness of this bloody place.

What still haunts me the most

is how it was staring us in the face.

Not just the thing itself, but even the word - tip.

Pit, turned inside out,

wrong way round,

which is how it was, of course.

I was the one meant to be in danger.

It was miners who died for coal...

-CHILDREN CHANTING MINERS' NICKNAMES

-..hundreds each year.

Us, in that daylight night...

CHILDREN CHANTING

..not our children, above ground,

learning in the light.

HORN

That's the pit, sounding the end of the safety shift.

And that's the bus, "Merthyr Col" on its side,

getting ready to give the next lot a ride.

Never see daylight, not in winter,

not unless you're carried out on a stretcher.

That's what my dad says.

He's down there, see?

But coming up now. He'll wash, change.

And if it's been hot, screw my vest into my tommy box.

Then he'll catch the bus back to have breakfast together.

It's important, isn't it? To eat round the table as one.

Otherwise, what's the point of having fathers, a mother, sons?

Might eat three times today.

Together, I mean. Half-term, so short hours, isn't it?

So, yeah, Tom'll be home long before tea.

And then tomorrow, a whole week off.

I can't wait!

I'm playing piano at a wedding first thing -

Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, for our neighbours Sheryl and Colin.

OUT OF TUNE PIANO

Then, hopefully, I'll be in time for the films, down at Bugs.

Cartoons, then Riders Of Death Valley.

MUSIC: Eine Kleine Nachtmusik

Wasn't always like this, of course.

Summer grazing, that's what brought the first people here.

Good land, sheltered spot, fed by six streams at least.

It's all still here, in a way - in the names, the streets.

Hafod Tanglwys - the summer place of Tanglwys.

Bryngolau - hill of light.

Pantglas - the green hollow,

and still is, I suppose, though with kids now, not grass.

And Aberfan, of course.

The mouth of the Fan,

the biggest of those streams feeding the Taff.

I still feel guilty about it. Silly, I know, but I do.

Because I can remember so clearly thinking, that morning

as Jack did his rounds in the van,

how nothing new, or nothing exciting ever happened in Aberfan.

Mind you, I was only nine, so maybe that's it!

And I lived at the top end, which was poorer.

But I wanted to be like my sister, older - to listen to the jukebox

down Emanuelli's cafe.

1960s POP MUSIC PLAYS

The boys from Bedlinog, straight-backed on their motorbikes,

winking through the window to take me away.

I wanted something to change -

for life to go faster, for me and the village.

And now?

Now I just wish that I'd somehow slowed time.

Stopped it even.

And with it, that slippage.

MUSIC: It's Not Unusual by Tom Jones

Barbara! You out of the bathroom yet?

Get in there, Anne, if she is! Half an hour to get yourself set.

Last day of school today, then half-term.

If it's fine tomorrow, I may go help on the farm.

Or play up the mountain, or tag, or hide and seek

up the old canal bank. But that's tomorrow.

Should think of today - that's what Mam would say.

Still a morning of school.

Maths, English, then break.

Might do some skipping, if Beth brings her rope.

GLASS CLATTERS

That's Jack the Milk, going door to door.

He's already been out for an hour, maybe more.

We usually pass him on our way up to school,

still delivering all down Moy Road,

with Bryntaf and Aberfan Fawr still to go.

Like the valley's still asleep when the mist's down this deep.

But it isn't - never really quiet, this village.

One shift coming up, another going down.

Generations down that pit. Not my boys, though.

I'm working down there so they won't.

Will's heading for an apprentice at JJ's garage,

and, well...according to some, he's got a chance in the ring.

And Tomos bach, he's good with his hands, too,

in a different way.

Only nine, but plays piano with both of 'em.

One of the dinner ladies knew my mam!

I mean, when she was little and in Pantglas, too.

They're not like the teachers, see. They're softer, will hold a hand.

And they know everyone, not just the child,

but their tad-cu, their nan - the whole family.

She's right, they do. Which is good, isn't it?

I mean, to know your daughter's in a place

where they know more than just her face.

Not like down Cardiff, where you're just one in a queue.

On your own. No belongings, no names behind you.

Take my Gwyn. Gwyn the Rose they call him round here.

Famous for his flowers.

Someone knocks at least once a week,

thumb in their buttonhole after a five-leaf.

Gives him a pride, to be known like that.

Had an accident, see? Down the pit.

Works in Hoover's now.

He's had his fair share, fair play -

so those roses, well, they add to him, don't they?

I stopped growing them after.

Least, let them go wild, stopped cutting them back.

Didn't seem right.

And flowers, well... they changed for me, too.

Whenever I saw them, in a window, a vase,

I'd see the cemetery slope again.

Like a quilt, spread.

A quilt of flowers for our village dead.

Anne! You getting dressed up there?

Never mind half day, you know the rules - school's still school.

She's a dreamer, that one. Youngest of six and youngest by far.

Gets 'em yearning too soon -

I mean, when their brothers and sisters are all in their teens.

But I say to her, "Anne, you cherish these days,

"cos believe me, cariad, one blink, and the world'll make you old

"in a hundred ways.'

"One blink, and the world'll make you old...

"..in a hundred ways."

Last day for me, too.

So I'll be out tonight.

The Bystanders playing down Troed-y-rhiw.

I saw them at the Social last month.

Like the Beatles and Moody Blues, all in one.

Bit of soul, bit of Motown.

From Merthyr they are.

We helped them, after, to carry their kit back up to the train in the Vale.

I think Will saw, and got jealous a bit!

Still - this bloody mist!

Least it's stopped raining, I suppose.

Old women and sticks it was last night,

streaming black all down the gullies.

We were just used to it, see?

The colour of coal in our water, our river,

was all we'd ever known.

The tips were just there, part of home.

So, no.

We didn't see any wrong in the rain.

Always been the same - that's why we love a small coal charabanc.

Six or seven buses in convoy, away for a day on the beach in Barry.

Then the long drive back, Tomos asleep on my lap,

the smell of the sea in his hair, sand in his toes.

Yeah, he still loves going on those.

Who wouldn't? It's the ocean -

got to beat swimming down the Taff,

or in the streams under the tips, hasn't it?

Not that here's as bad as all that.

Loads to do! The mountain - that's a playground in itself.

Anne goes up there for hide and seek.

And Tomos? Sits on cardboard to slide down the tips.

Could do without those, granted.

But to remove them - well, the cost...

NCB reckon it would close the pit.

And we do all right, too, don't we?

So, yeah, can't complain. A good place to be, Aberfan.

CLASSICAL PIANO INSTRUMENTAL

Bye, Mam.

Bye, love.

And that's how they went.

Out a hundred doors for their last days.

And that's how we said our last goodbyes,

with all the luxury of easy time.

But it was already draining.

Running out like sand in the glass,

like that pile of tailings and shale,

already moving, pressed to a shifting,

under the weight of its own black hand.

Restless with rain,

storm water.

CLOCK CHIMES

And under it, on their way to school...

..my son.

My daughter.

Bye...

..love.

CHILDREN LAUGH

I love this time of year.

-I think it's my favourite.

-Harvest festival.

Bonfire Night.

Then after half term we start rehearsing the Nativity.

Sometimes, if we're early, we go into Maypoles -

a grocer's on the high street, just to watch their bobbins,

strung up on a string.

More like a zip-line it is.

-One push from the counter...

-And off they go, to the register.

That morning, though, we were late,

so didn't go to Maypoles,

but Anderson's instead - a tuck shop on the hill,

next to Georgie the barber's.

-CHILDREN:

-Three shrimps, please, and two flying saucers.

Georgie was still in bed, his shop sign turned to "closed".

He's always said, if it had been the other way round, well -

let's just say he's grateful he dozed.

Shh, listen!

-To what?

-The birds. They aren't singing.

-How can you listen to nothing?

-It's this mist, isn't it?

What about it?

Can't see, can they? So don't know it's day.

It was true.

The mist was still lying heavy,

so as we walked up to school,

just a few steps apart we'd lose sight of each other.

If only I'd have known.

I'd have made sure to stay closer.

Do you think Mrs Jennings will still make us go out?

Even if at break, it's still like this?

You know her rules - outside, whatever the weather.

What shall we play, if she does?

Hopscotch? Tag? Stuck in the mud?

L-O-N-D-O-N spells London?

Or Dickie five stones, or ginger ginger, maybe later?

You know what my dad said last night, about Mr Beynon?

That he'd beat him in a fight?

That he's in love with Miss Jones?

No! That he used to play for Aberdare, years ago.

At lock he was, and one of their best.

I could believe it. Huge, he was.

I still remember, standing at his feet,

my head well under his chest, looking up, saying, "Sir?" -

and thinking, "Dewww, he goes on for ever!"

We had assembly that day.

The whole school, sitting cross-legged on the parquet floor.

OK, sit down, class.

The whole school, ages five to ten,

singing All Things Bright And Beautiful.

# All things bright and beautiful

# All creatures great and small

# All things wise and wonderful

# The Lord God made them all. #

No. There Is A Green Hill Far Away.

That's what we sang, I think. Can't be sure.

# There is a green hill far away

# Outside a city wall... #

Then we went to our classes -

that I do know.

Each age through a different door.

I sat by the window. I remember that.

Mr Beynon up front, writing the date.

"20th August 1963.

"Dear Sir, re: danger from coal slurry being tipped at the rear

"of Pantglas School, Aberfan.

-DIFFERENT VOICES:

-"I am very apprehensive about this matter...

"..as are the councillors and the residents in this area...

"..as they have previously experienced, during periods of rain...

"13th December 1963.

"Dear Sir, re: danger from coal slurry being tipped at the rear...

-"Danger from coal slurry being tipped...

-..danger from coal slurry being tipped...

"..tipped at the rear of Pantglas School, Aberfan.

"As a matter of emergency... I feel it is necessary

"that the NCB be made to commit...

"31st January 1964. Dear Sir, re:...

"on the 22nd January I stated that the pipes

"under the Aberfan road were half full of silt

"and that conditions...

"So far as the council are concerned,

"there has been a deterioration in the position...

"As I have said, the silt washed down will now build up...

"I have not yet had a satisfactory reply to the questions raised.

"..sliding in the manner that I have envisaged.

"You are no doubt aware of the tips above Pantglas...

"You are no doubt aware of the tips above Pantglas...

"..and if they were to move, a very serious position would accrue."

October...?

Come on, who can tell me?

October 21st, sir, 1966.

I'd been out in that mist, so thick I could only see

a couple of the poles down below,

the ones that carry the wires up from town.

One, two, maybe three, no more.

Then suddenly...those wires started swinging around,

started jumping.

Like some giant hand was playing at skipping.

RUMBLING

Sir?

-Yes?

-Is that thunder?

Maybe, Anne.

But then it got louder than thunder ever can.

And faster.

I looked out the window, saw Jack the Milk, then -

and I still don't know why, I had no time to think -

I put the book I was reading over my head.

-RUMBLING

-Seconds later, the darkness came in.

RUMBLING

As if all the eyes in all the world...

had chosen then to blink.

SOUNDS LIKE THUNDER

RUMBLING FADES TO SILENCE

CHATTERING

Thank you very much for sharing.

Glad to. It's good therapy for me.

I was thinking about how you must have felt on that journey,

on the bus on the way home.

I hadn't really thought about it for 50 years. Yeah.

And, you know, when you live in an area, you know lots of people.

-That's right.

-Yeah, so, generation yna, stopio siarad Cymraeg 'da pobol.

Obviously, we learnt about it, growing up with history in school..

-Yes.

-..and that kind of thing.

-But the fact that it shouldn't have happened.

-Oh, no.

People were talking even months before

about the slag heap, and somebody should do something about it.

Very quiet, please. Very still. Here we go.

I'm a scientist, so I don't believe in spirits and such.

But I've always kept a diary, a page of A4, every night,

so it's there, in black and white.

We couldn't sleep. Me or my wife.

We were living, in East London back then,

us and our baby girl,

but that wasn't where we were from.

No, that was Merthyr and Aberfan.

And that's where we were going in the early dark that morning.

I was getting ready for work, up at the bank.

Hadn't long put on my suit and tie, when a neighbour came over,

asked if he could use our phone.

He seemed...upset.

"Of course," I said. "Why?"

"There's something wrong. A house has collapsed, up at Moy Road."

"Collapsed? How?"

"That's all I was told. But it's happened, just now."

So I dialled 999. Got through to the fire service, and let them know.

As I was on the line, I heard a woman scream.

I looked up. Men were running past my window.

"I think this is something major. How long till you arrive?

"As soon as we can. Your call's been logged at 9.25."

I'd just got back from honeymoon.

A week near Burnham Beeches.

I was still living in Cardiff with my wife and her parents.

I was young, ambitious. Been at the Express for a year and a half.

I wanted to go places, travel.

And I did.

But this morning it was just Merthyr again, on the train -

an early interview with the council's John Beale,

Director of Education.

After I was coming down the steps of his offices,

a car pulled up on the kerb - one of the paper's photographers,

Mel Parry, only 18 back then -

been to the station for the morning call.

There's been a couple of incidents - a domestic fire in Dowlais,

or an outhouse at a school collapsed in Aberfan.

Which do you think, Sam?

Fires are common enough. Let's try the school.

Sounds a bit different.

'So he got in, and I drove on.'

We were approaching Merthyr Vale when we saw the cars in the mist.

A chain of headlights,

blue and red stitched with police, an ambulance.

All coming towards us, away from Aberfan.

I watched them pass, become a river of red in our mirror.

I'd been Mayor's secretary since March of '66.

I'd gone in early that morning.

We lit the fire. Switchboard girl had been in to turn her handle.

All was normal.

Then, suddenly, the men were leaving.

They'd been told, you see, to go to Aberfan.

The offices emptied, to a man.

Just the women left.

No-one could tell us why. We didn't know what to do.

But then the ambulances started streaking through town,

and we knew.

Within the hour, we'd gone from staffing the office, to a crisis HQ.

Must have been around 9.30 as we reached Dowlais Top,

when out of the mist we saw a roadblock.

I pulled up.

"Which way you going?" "Brecon Road, in Merthyr."

Which is when he said, 'A disaster."

That's what he called it, even then.

Of course, we thought it was the pit.

All my father's side is from Aberfan,

and always been miners, too.

The officer was about to signal us on,

when he saw the sticker above my bumper - BMA.

"Are you a doctor?" "Student. Final year."

"But you're medical? We could use your help, if so.

"All the other doctors, see, they're up at St Tydfil's or Merthyr Central for the casualties."

"Of course. Anything I can do."

And that was it. They waved us through.

I followed the crowd running down my street,

turned at the Mack and couldn't believe it.

They're making a film, that's all I could think.

The apex of the roofs, you see,

they were all, well... sitting on rubble.

Everything else had gone.

And then, as I looked, that rubble wept.

The Cardiff-to-Merthyr main burst by the slipping tip.

It just kept coming, turning windows to waterfalls,

but thick and black,

not like water at all.

It looked like the Somme.

That's what I thought when I came round the corner.

A mountain of slurry, with men all over,

like ants, and all of them digging with their fingers, their hands.

I had my notebook, my pen, but I couldn't take them out.

So instead, I climbed up onto it,

that mass of underground waste,

and joined a chain, passing back buckets of slurry.

It was only after a while I noticed -

it was still moving.

The whole dark body of it,

a slow buckle and seep like a small coal muscle,

hard but supple, flexing under our feet.

More people were coming all the time,

with shovels, picks, spades.

I saw firemen further up, pulling out a man in pyjamas.

In one of the classrooms a dram was stuck -

that's what someone said -

and animals, too, from the farm on the hill -

sheep, a cow, all dead.

It sounds odd to say it now, but what it resembled, that scene,

was like something from the gold rush -

like one of those old photos

where every man has staked out his pitch to prospect for wealth.

Except these men were digging for something else,

something more precious, too - their little ones.

Their sons, daughters, nephews, nieces -

still stuck in that school.

Most had never worked so hard in their life,

so began collapsing with pains in their chests.

I did my best to see them right,

treated sprains, cuts - but it wasn't enough.

How could it be, in that landscape of pain?

With that great black tongue lolling out of the mist...

..and just there, nearby, the mothers,

holding each other, knee-deep in the grit,

looking on at what that slipping tip had done.

Soon enough, every able man was working to clear it.

Some children had been pulled out alive,

but everybody knew we didn't have much time.

I heard lorries, and turned to see the miners, up from the colliery.

Hundreds of them, jumping off before those lorries had stopped

and diving straight in to attack that slip.

God, did they work.

And organised us too.

Had teams digging trenches, others making corrugate chutes.

Every now and then a cry would go up, and to a man

we'd all still and listen.

Machines would stop - breaths were held,

until the source of the sound was found,

and then the fury of digging again.

Until around 11...

..when for the first time that day hundreds of us listened,

leant on our shovels, strained every sense...

..only to be met with nothing but silence.

At around 11 we assembled in the chamber

to be informed of the plans.

"We're setting up mortuaries," they said, "wherever we can."

We were stunned, numb.

But of course had to carry on.

There was so much to be done.

I'd taken over with a shovel when a young man came over.

"Went to a classroom," he said.

"You'd better come through, just in case."

So I passed my tool to another and followed him into the ruins of that place.

For years I've had dreams because of what I saw.

The classroom... it was like it had been shaken.

Desks, chairs, a boulder,

a clock angled where it fell.

And there...

..up against the wall...

..no higher than your waist...

..20 children...

..their master in front of them, his arms spread in protection,

trying to save them all.

He was a big man.

But what could he have done?

One teacher against a mountain.

I could see, behind him, their faces,

their mouths still open as if they'd been caught mid-song.

Except you could tell it wasn't a song those mouths had been making,

all crammed as they were with the same black note,

of shale, slurry and grit.

And their eyes as well.

I've never seen a thing so wrong.

There was nothing to be done.

At around four, the women as well as the men

were asked to go to Aberfan.

Once there, we gathered in a hall, unsure what would happen.

But then John Beale, Director of Education,

he came in, school registers under his arm.

He wanted to account for the children,

so began to read out their names.

But their sound on the air, what it conjured,

was too much for him.

He broke down.

And anyway, nobody knew...

..who had survived and who had not.

So each of the women was given a street,

and told to go down it from door to door...

..asking each family a single question

against the grain of natural law.

I was 22.

Each time I knocked,

I prayed the answer would be, "Yes, he's here,"

or, "Yes, she's asleep upstairs."

But of course, all too often it wasn't.

I wrote down the name...

or the names,

the ages -

seven, eight, nine.

We'd talk, if they wanted.

And then they'd close their door, softly,

the hand of a husband or wife on their shoulder,

and I'd carry on, with my list of numbers, names and ages,

willing for it not to grow any longer.

At some point, the NCB rescue teams came.

Like the cavalry they were,

in their yellow jackets and hats.

Then the Army, digging trenches,

clearing storm water - from all over country,

feather pumps and tenders.

No-one else would be pulled out alive.

Not from the houses, nor the school.

But still, all you could hear was the sound of digging tools.

And, occasionally, quiet crying.

Because now there was other work to do.

Supporting the parents at Bethania chapel,

small bodies under blankets on every pew,

as they went in to identify their children,

sometimes by face,

but often by just a piece of cloth, a pair of shoes.

Somehow, throughout it all, the workers were fed, watered.

Soup and bread from the Salvation Army,

the Civil Defence.

Even, at one point, a plate of wedding cake.

But then, that's what happens, isn't it?

The world ruptures and we offer what we can.

And that's what happened that night.

To a woman, a man...

..people gave their strength, their sympathy...

..offered up for Aberfan.

When the day started fading, they brought in arc lights,

powered by canisters of gas.

Towers were erected, from which they shone

across that whole expanse of ruin and slurry and dark.

Everyone was covered in muck, me included.

I'd worn my best suit to go and see John Beale,

but now you'd have thought I'd spent the day down the pit.

But we hadn't. It had come to us.

Everyone knew that now.

And when it did, like some heartless pied piper,

it harvested the best of that town.

It was time for me to go.

Dusk was giving to night. I wanted to see my wife.

The Merthyr-to-Cardiff line had been cut, so I got a bus.

I was the only one on it, and like that,

held in the brightness of its upper deck,

I travelled home alone, through the darkness,

being sick at my feet as it went.

I couldn't help seeing one specific sight.

The curtains of a house in a short terraced street

I'd passed earlier that day.

They were closed, which in Wales, not at night, means only one thing -

a house where the seeds of death have been sown.

I walked on, but as I did I looked down the rest of that row,

which is when I saw -

the curtains, they were drawn in every window.

It's amazing, our school.

Got iPads and Astroturf and loads of clubs, too.

Science is my favourite.

We've been learning about Tim Peake all this week.

Six months he was up there!

Mr Davies says tomorrow we'll be able to see it from here.

A man-made star, that's what it'll be like,

just above the mountain ridge.

Slow, but faster than a satellite.

Dancing's more my thing - cha-cha-cha, jive and Latin.

I play football, too, in a mixed team run by the Social.

Unless it's tipping - then I'll stay inside

and listen to One Direction.

It just looked so beautiful, when we first drove in.

We thought it would be a good place for the kids.

And we were right.

It's scenic, quiet.

They feel safe, even at night.

I didn't go to school for about a year after.

None of us did, who'd survived.

They put some caravans down at the site where the Welsh school is now.

Back then it was a tip - coal and slag at the sides.

Toys had been donated, books for us to read.

We could stay, leave, come and go as we pleased.

I didn't live at home, either, for a while,

I went to live with an older sister.

In the street, see, every child except me was dead.

So I was difficult for the other parents to see.

"They took all the roses,"

that's what one woman said to me.

"And left us the thorns."

So, yeah, I went away for a bit.

When I came back, my mother was completely bald.

She'd been on the ambulances, taking the bodies.

Weeks later, her hair fell out.

"You're the lucky one," she'd say, when I asked after friends.

"That's all you need to know about."

In the end, they sent us to Mount Pleasant,

but we were too disruptive, that's what they say -

the Pantglas kids.

And still, if there was thunder, lightning,

the teachers would shout, tell us to hide.

They were only young themselves and, like us, still traumatised.

So, yeah, wouldn't be right to say those who'd survived

entirely escaped that tip's landslide.

We got out, yes,

and most of us have got on, too.

But the shadow of that shale, those tailings...

..it's long and deep, and cast inside.

BOTH: How could it not be?

We were children, going to school with our friends.

Then, minutes later, climbing out again without them.

Aberfan is known, isn't it?

Anywhere you go, you say the name, and people are, like, "Oh," nodding,

thinking of the disaster.

But that's not the whole story.

I mean, if it was, they must think we're a miserable place,

sitting round crying, long in the face. But that's not true.

Take the Young Wives' Club.

1960s POP MUSIC PLAYS

I know it grew from what happened, but it grew beyond it, too.

Buses to London, theatre trips.

I reckon that's mostly what they do!

Might sound strange but it's true,

and partly why the group was formed.

We felt guilty, see, whether your child had survived or died,

to be seen laughing in the street, or having fun.

But we were human,

and hurting terribly, all of us,

which is why it was so vital to have somewhere we could go

to laugh, cry, have a recital,

or just talk, get on a bus,

to go out together, to forget, and remember.

Coming together for 50 years or so,

and for many of us, all carrying that same green hollow.

The club's changed, obviously, over the years.

Just last week, we put it to the vote,

and decided - time to drop the "young" from the title.

So just the Wives' Club now we are.

I don't know - it's fine by me,

if what we were, what we've known...

..starts becoming...history.

It was years later, when we were adults,

that we all finally talked about it.

We got in touch, said, "Right, let's do this."

Asked each other questions, shared our stories.

And got really drunk as we did,

as if it was the only way we could let everything out.

Since then, I'd say it's been better.

All of us still carry the scars, of course.

And I couldn't help notice that none of us, when we met,

had held down relationships -

either never married, or had, then got divorced.

We'd mostly been successful, though.

A barrister, a writer, an accountant, a mayor.

As if, having survived that collapsing pile,

we'd made a pact with ourselves

to make the living we'd been given worthwhile.

I studied hard, in the end.

Went to university, then worked for years in the City.

I felt, in a way, like I had a duty,

to succeed not just for me, but for my friends as well -

the children in that class who never got the chance

to be what they hoped...

..or to even try.

So, yeah...

..I think that's why.

CLASSICAL PIANO INSTRUMENTAL

There was, at least, a public conversation.

The funerals first, of course.

A kind of communal speech of grief -

the grave like a trench,

the hearses, the crowds, the flowers.

But we had to heal, and I'd say we have.

Whole place is greening back up.

Go up the canal bank, in July, August,

when the thistle heads are seeding,

catching the light, early berries budding,

chaffinches singing.

Well, beautiful it is.

I've always tried to do my bit -

set up a scheme for apprenticeships, that kind of thing.

Can't say why.

Because I was there, perhaps...

..or because I'm still here.

Don't get me wrong.

It's not like there hasn't been anger.

Of course there has. Still is.

I remember on the Monday after,

when it first made itself known,

when our silent grief became heard.

It was at an inquest at Zion chapel, into the deaths of 30 children.

The coroner, he was reading out the causes -

asphyxia, multiple injuries...

..when from out the crowd, a father stood.

No, sir. Buried alive by the National Coal Board.

That's what I want on the official record.

The coroner, Mr Hamilton, paused...

..and in the silence, a woman cried out...

They have killed our children!

Then there were the tribunals.

Another public conversation,

and necessary, I'm sure,

though many found it hard to settle with its conclusion.

No-one prosecuted, no-one sacked

nor forced to resign -

and with the NCB claiming no knowledge or sign

of a spring under the tip.

After generations had swum in it.

Corporate manslaughter, that's what it amounted to.

"Not wickedness, but ignorance, ineptitude

"and a failure of communication."

That's what the final report claimed,

and that the NCB carried the blame for a lack of regulation.

I was on the tip removal committee.

Had to be, really.

Like everyone else, I wanted them gone.

Not surprising, when you think what they'd done.

But after the tribunal, they were inspected,

and the NCB declared them safe.

"No reason to go," that's what they said.

Well, we wouldn't take no.

Because that wasn't the point, was it?

Safe or not - and we'd heard that before -

we didn't want to see them each day when we opened our door.

Piles of the stuff on the mountainside,

dug out, for many of us, by our very own hands.

It took my boy away.

That was reason enough for me.

But eventually they went.

Which is when we were left asking, "What next?"

Removing those tips, see, it brought us together,

and in a way - no denying - it helped,

and we didn't want that helping to end.

So, we had a meeting and someone said, "Why not a choir?"

# And I will sing with the understanding also

# Alleluia, alleluia

# Alleluia. #

The choir's changed, of course - lots of new men -

but the spirit hasn't.

It's still the same, we're still here, and still singing.

# For my heart would break

# If you should wake and see me go... #

I won't lie - went off the rails for a bit.

Lots of us did. And not just the kids.

Hardly a surprise. I mean, we've had our own daughter since, so I know.

Is anything more alive than a... eight, nine-year-old child? No.

So imagine losing all that life at once,

all that talk and song and dance and...and fight.

Enough to put any place out for the count.

But we got back up, didn't we? That's for sure.

As a village, and on our own.

Me, I took up at JJ's, became a mechanic -

married Barbara, too.

I don't know, we'd always fancied each other.

Even though my brother died, while her sister survived,

we both still lost, in a way.

Maybe that drew us closer. I like to think so.

I still think of my brother every day.

What type of man he'd have been.

If he'd had kids, in their faces,

how much of him, or me, we'd have seen.

But you've got to move on, haven't you?

But you've got to move on, haven't you?

But you've got to move on, haven't you?

But you've got to move on, haven't you?

But you've got to move on, haven't you?

But you've got to move on, haven't you?

But you've got to move on, haven't you?

But you've got to move on.

Haven't you?

I'm going to be a painter, like Tom's dad!

-A dancer on Strictly!

-A goalkeeper for Chelsea.

A pilot or hairdresser.

A fish-and-chip man.

A teacher.

For me, it's about opening the world to these children. And their eyes.

Letting them see what they could do,

who they could be.

-A rugby player.

-A freerunner.

-A singer.

-A soldier.

-A nurse.

Because you can only aspire to what you can imagine, or see.

-A farmer.

-A miner.

-A lorry driver.

-A dinner lady.

All that, though - the teaching, the running the school -

that comes easily enough to me.

But then there are the other things that are harder to negotiate.

-A football player.

-An actor.

A doctor.

The first man on the moon - an astronaut!

Each year, for example, we mark the disaster's date.

And we should.

But it's difficult, sometimes, to know exactly what to do.

Some want to talk, to remember.

Others - they stay quiet, they try to forget.

And here, well, they're children -

some the same age as those who died.

So, yes, we teach it, but gently, as part of the general history.

The way I see it, more and more, is that we're all carbon, aren't we?

At least, that's what Tom keeps telling me.

And what happened here...

..it was the most terrible weight.

The worst you can imagine.

A weight on lives, families, the community, the town.

But what happens to carbon under pressure,

if you keep pressing down?

Well, at first, you get coal.

A darkness that burns.

But keep pressing long and hard enough

and some of that coal turns diamond...

..and some of that darkness light.

Now, I'm not saying we're all diamonds here, of course I'm not.

But I do think that when so many have felt the same pressure,

at exactly the same time, then sometimes, in places,

we're pushed through till we shine.

An unexpected brightness...

..made both of that darkness

and that sharing of weight...

..its source buried under years.

But there, deeply rooted in our memories...

..a day...

..a date.

# All things bright and beautiful

# All creatures great and small

# All things wise and wonderful... #

SINGING FADES