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Never in my life have I ever seen anything like this. | 0:00:02 | 0:00:05 | |
I hope that I shall never, ever see anything like it again. | 0:00:07 | 0:00:13 | |
For years, of course, miners have been used to having roll calls | 0:00:13 | 0:00:17 | |
whenever there's been a pit disaster. | 0:00:17 | 0:00:21 | |
Today, for the first time in history, | 0:00:21 | 0:00:24 | |
the roll call was for the miners' children. | 0:00:24 | 0:00:26 | |
Ahh. How to talk about it. | 0:00:56 | 0:01:00 | |
That's been a struggle from the very start. | 0:01:01 | 0:01:04 | |
When something like that happens, | 0:01:04 | 0:01:08 | |
a village, a person... | 0:01:08 | 0:01:12 | |
they're bound to go dark. | 0:01:12 | 0:01:13 | |
They did their best, they really did. | 0:01:15 | 0:01:18 | |
Psychologists offered to the community - | 0:01:18 | 0:01:21 | |
educational and clinical. | 0:01:21 | 0:01:22 | |
But all that, those processes, they were still in their infancy. | 0:01:24 | 0:01:28 | |
And sometimes - well, right then, straight after, | 0:01:29 | 0:01:34 | |
isn't when you need 'em. | 0:01:34 | 0:01:36 | |
I remember, for example, the one appointed to me, | 0:01:38 | 0:01:42 | |
he'd say, "Don't think about bad things, like what happened, | 0:01:42 | 0:01:46 | |
"but happy things, like your birthday." | 0:01:46 | 0:01:48 | |
My birthday! | 0:01:51 | 0:01:53 | |
How could he have known? | 0:01:53 | 0:01:55 | |
There was no worse thing. | 0:01:55 | 0:01:57 | |
I'd been looking forward to mine - | 0:01:57 | 0:01:59 | |
20, 30 friends at a party. | 0:01:59 | 0:02:01 | |
But then, when the date came, | 0:02:03 | 0:02:05 | |
there were only three, four of us about, | 0:02:05 | 0:02:09 | |
and that's when it really sunk in. | 0:02:09 | 0:02:12 | |
My friends - they'd been wiped out. | 0:02:12 | 0:02:16 | |
The journeys will be starting soon. | 0:02:24 | 0:02:27 | |
You can't see them, down here in the street, | 0:02:27 | 0:02:29 | |
but once they're up and running | 0:02:29 | 0:02:31 | |
their sound is all through the village - | 0:02:31 | 0:02:34 | |
last thing I hear before going to sleep, | 0:02:34 | 0:02:36 | |
and first thing, too, just after I wake. | 0:02:36 | 0:02:39 | |
Or when we're playing down the river, or in school, on a break. | 0:02:39 | 0:02:44 | |
Rumble they do, and clang. | 0:02:44 | 0:02:46 | |
Metal wheels on metal tracks. | 0:02:46 | 0:02:48 | |
Drams they call 'em, too, | 0:02:48 | 0:02:50 | |
carrying the spoil and the shale from down by the pit, | 0:02:50 | 0:02:54 | |
across the black bridge | 0:02:54 | 0:02:56 | |
and all the way up to the top of the tip. | 0:02:56 | 0:02:58 | |
Number seven - that's the one they're going to now. | 0:02:58 | 0:03:02 | |
Even if you were there, though, on the mountain, I mean, | 0:03:03 | 0:03:06 | |
you'd still only hear them, | 0:03:06 | 0:03:08 | |
wouldn't see them - not till the cranes, at least. | 0:03:08 | 0:03:12 | |
Not with this fog, like a cloud in the street. | 0:03:12 | 0:03:16 | |
It's dark. I can still tell it's thick. | 0:03:16 | 0:03:19 | |
The way the streetlights blur out, and how I can't see the ridge. | 0:03:19 | 0:03:23 | |
If I could, that would be darker again, | 0:03:23 | 0:03:26 | |
like ink spilt on ink. | 0:03:26 | 0:03:28 | |
And above it, just the moon - | 0:03:28 | 0:03:31 | |
a harvest one in a week or two. | 0:03:31 | 0:03:33 | |
Will says they'll be putting a man on it soon. | 0:03:34 | 0:03:37 | |
He means the Americans, but I don't know. | 0:03:37 | 0:03:40 | |
I think the Russians might get there first. | 0:03:40 | 0:03:42 | |
They're launching Lunik 12 tomorrow. | 0:03:42 | 0:03:45 | |
Like a spinning top it is, with spikes all over. | 0:03:45 | 0:03:48 | |
Putting it into orbit, if they can. | 0:03:49 | 0:03:51 | |
That's what Dad says - | 0:03:51 | 0:03:53 | |
"Like a moon for a moon, but made by man." | 0:03:53 | 0:03:56 | |
Mad about science, my Tomos, always following them rockets. | 0:03:56 | 0:04:00 | |
Which is fine by me. | 0:04:00 | 0:04:02 | |
Better by far he's looking up there to the darkness of space, | 0:04:02 | 0:04:05 | |
than down to the blackness of this bloody place. | 0:04:05 | 0:04:08 | |
What still haunts me the most | 0:04:11 | 0:04:13 | |
is how it was staring us in the face. | 0:04:13 | 0:04:16 | |
Not just the thing itself, but even the word - tip. | 0:04:17 | 0:04:21 | |
Pit, turned inside out, | 0:04:21 | 0:04:25 | |
wrong way round, | 0:04:25 | 0:04:27 | |
which is how it was, of course. | 0:04:27 | 0:04:28 | |
I was the one meant to be in danger. | 0:04:30 | 0:04:32 | |
It was miners who died for coal... | 0:04:32 | 0:04:35 | |
-CHILDREN CHANTING MINERS' NICKNAMES -..hundreds each year. | 0:04:35 | 0:04:38 | |
Us, in that daylight night... | 0:04:38 | 0:04:42 | |
CHILDREN CHANTING | 0:04:42 | 0:04:44 | |
..not our children, above ground, | 0:04:44 | 0:04:47 | |
learning in the light. | 0:04:47 | 0:04:48 | |
HORN | 0:04:48 | 0:04:53 | |
That's the pit, sounding the end of the safety shift. | 0:04:53 | 0:04:57 | |
And that's the bus, "Merthyr Col" on its side, | 0:04:57 | 0:05:00 | |
getting ready to give the next lot a ride. | 0:05:00 | 0:05:03 | |
Never see daylight, not in winter, | 0:05:03 | 0:05:06 | |
not unless you're carried out on a stretcher. | 0:05:06 | 0:05:08 | |
That's what my dad says. | 0:05:09 | 0:05:11 | |
He's down there, see? | 0:05:11 | 0:05:12 | |
But coming up now. He'll wash, change. | 0:05:12 | 0:05:15 | |
And if it's been hot, screw my vest into my tommy box. | 0:05:15 | 0:05:18 | |
Then he'll catch the bus back to have breakfast together. | 0:05:18 | 0:05:22 | |
It's important, isn't it? To eat round the table as one. | 0:05:22 | 0:05:25 | |
Otherwise, what's the point of having fathers, a mother, sons? | 0:05:25 | 0:05:29 | |
Might eat three times today. | 0:05:32 | 0:05:34 | |
Together, I mean. Half-term, so short hours, isn't it? | 0:05:34 | 0:05:39 | |
So, yeah, Tom'll be home long before tea. | 0:05:39 | 0:05:43 | |
And then tomorrow, a whole week off. | 0:05:43 | 0:05:45 | |
I can't wait! | 0:05:45 | 0:05:47 | |
I'm playing piano at a wedding first thing - | 0:05:47 | 0:05:49 | |
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, for our neighbours Sheryl and Colin. | 0:05:49 | 0:05:53 | |
OUT OF TUNE PIANO | 0:05:53 | 0:05:57 | |
Then, hopefully, I'll be in time for the films, down at Bugs. | 0:05:57 | 0:06:02 | |
Cartoons, then Riders Of Death Valley. | 0:06:02 | 0:06:06 | |
MUSIC: Eine Kleine Nachtmusik | 0:06:06 | 0:06:11 | |
Wasn't always like this, of course. | 0:06:20 | 0:06:23 | |
Summer grazing, that's what brought the first people here. | 0:06:23 | 0:06:26 | |
Good land, sheltered spot, fed by six streams at least. | 0:06:26 | 0:06:32 | |
It's all still here, in a way - in the names, the streets. | 0:06:32 | 0:06:36 | |
Hafod Tanglwys - the summer place of Tanglwys. | 0:06:38 | 0:06:41 | |
Bryngolau - hill of light. | 0:06:42 | 0:06:44 | |
Pantglas - the green hollow, | 0:06:45 | 0:06:50 | |
and still is, I suppose, though with kids now, not grass. | 0:06:50 | 0:06:54 | |
And Aberfan, of course. | 0:06:54 | 0:06:56 | |
The mouth of the Fan, | 0:06:56 | 0:06:58 | |
the biggest of those streams feeding the Taff. | 0:06:58 | 0:07:01 | |
I still feel guilty about it. Silly, I know, but I do. | 0:07:05 | 0:07:08 | |
Because I can remember so clearly thinking, that morning | 0:07:10 | 0:07:14 | |
as Jack did his rounds in the van, | 0:07:14 | 0:07:17 | |
how nothing new, or nothing exciting ever happened in Aberfan. | 0:07:17 | 0:07:22 | |
Mind you, I was only nine, so maybe that's it! | 0:07:26 | 0:07:29 | |
And I lived at the top end, which was poorer. | 0:07:29 | 0:07:31 | |
But I wanted to be like my sister, older - to listen to the jukebox | 0:07:33 | 0:07:38 | |
down Emanuelli's cafe. | 0:07:38 | 0:07:40 | |
1960s POP MUSIC PLAYS | 0:07:40 | 0:07:46 | |
The boys from Bedlinog, straight-backed on their motorbikes, | 0:07:46 | 0:07:48 | |
winking through the window to take me away. | 0:07:48 | 0:07:51 | |
I wanted something to change - | 0:07:53 | 0:07:56 | |
for life to go faster, for me and the village. | 0:07:56 | 0:07:59 | |
And now? | 0:08:02 | 0:08:03 | |
Now I just wish that I'd somehow slowed time. | 0:08:05 | 0:08:09 | |
Stopped it even. | 0:08:11 | 0:08:13 | |
And with it, that slippage. | 0:08:15 | 0:08:17 | |
MUSIC: It's Not Unusual by Tom Jones | 0:08:17 | 0:08:19 | |
Barbara! You out of the bathroom yet? | 0:08:21 | 0:08:24 | |
Get in there, Anne, if she is! Half an hour to get yourself set. | 0:08:24 | 0:08:29 | |
Last day of school today, then half-term. | 0:08:29 | 0:08:31 | |
If it's fine tomorrow, I may go help on the farm. | 0:08:31 | 0:08:34 | |
Or play up the mountain, or tag, or hide and seek | 0:08:34 | 0:08:38 | |
up the old canal bank. But that's tomorrow. | 0:08:38 | 0:08:40 | |
Should think of today - that's what Mam would say. | 0:08:40 | 0:08:44 | |
Still a morning of school. | 0:08:44 | 0:08:46 | |
Maths, English, then break. | 0:08:46 | 0:08:48 | |
Might do some skipping, if Beth brings her rope. | 0:08:48 | 0:08:51 | |
GLASS CLATTERS | 0:08:51 | 0:08:53 | |
That's Jack the Milk, going door to door. | 0:08:53 | 0:08:55 | |
He's already been out for an hour, maybe more. | 0:08:55 | 0:08:58 | |
We usually pass him on our way up to school, | 0:08:58 | 0:09:01 | |
still delivering all down Moy Road, | 0:09:01 | 0:09:03 | |
with Bryntaf and Aberfan Fawr still to go. | 0:09:03 | 0:09:07 | |
Like the valley's still asleep when the mist's down this deep. | 0:09:08 | 0:09:12 | |
But it isn't - never really quiet, this village. | 0:09:12 | 0:09:17 | |
One shift coming up, another going down. | 0:09:17 | 0:09:21 | |
Generations down that pit. Not my boys, though. | 0:09:24 | 0:09:28 | |
I'm working down there so they won't. | 0:09:28 | 0:09:30 | |
Will's heading for an apprentice at JJ's garage, | 0:09:30 | 0:09:33 | |
and, well...according to some, he's got a chance in the ring. | 0:09:33 | 0:09:37 | |
And Tomos bach, he's good with his hands, too, | 0:09:40 | 0:09:43 | |
in a different way. | 0:09:43 | 0:09:44 | |
Only nine, but plays piano with both of 'em. | 0:09:44 | 0:09:48 | |
One of the dinner ladies knew my mam! | 0:09:53 | 0:09:56 | |
I mean, when she was little and in Pantglas, too. | 0:09:56 | 0:09:59 | |
They're not like the teachers, see. They're softer, will hold a hand. | 0:09:59 | 0:10:02 | |
And they know everyone, not just the child, | 0:10:02 | 0:10:05 | |
but their tad-cu, their nan - the whole family. | 0:10:05 | 0:10:10 | |
She's right, they do. Which is good, isn't it? | 0:10:10 | 0:10:13 | |
I mean, to know your daughter's in a place | 0:10:13 | 0:10:15 | |
where they know more than just her face. | 0:10:15 | 0:10:18 | |
Not like down Cardiff, where you're just one in a queue. | 0:10:18 | 0:10:21 | |
On your own. No belongings, no names behind you. | 0:10:21 | 0:10:25 | |
Take my Gwyn. Gwyn the Rose they call him round here. | 0:10:25 | 0:10:28 | |
Famous for his flowers. | 0:10:28 | 0:10:30 | |
Someone knocks at least once a week, | 0:10:30 | 0:10:32 | |
thumb in their buttonhole after a five-leaf. | 0:10:32 | 0:10:34 | |
Gives him a pride, to be known like that. | 0:10:36 | 0:10:40 | |
Had an accident, see? Down the pit. | 0:10:40 | 0:10:43 | |
Works in Hoover's now. | 0:10:43 | 0:10:45 | |
He's had his fair share, fair play - | 0:10:45 | 0:10:46 | |
so those roses, well, they add to him, don't they? | 0:10:46 | 0:10:50 | |
I stopped growing them after. | 0:10:52 | 0:10:55 | |
Least, let them go wild, stopped cutting them back. | 0:10:55 | 0:11:00 | |
Didn't seem right. | 0:11:01 | 0:11:02 | |
And flowers, well... they changed for me, too. | 0:11:04 | 0:11:08 | |
Whenever I saw them, in a window, a vase, | 0:11:09 | 0:11:15 | |
I'd see the cemetery slope again. | 0:11:15 | 0:11:17 | |
Like a quilt, spread. | 0:11:19 | 0:11:22 | |
A quilt of flowers for our village dead. | 0:11:24 | 0:11:27 | |
Anne! You getting dressed up there? | 0:11:31 | 0:11:34 | |
Never mind half day, you know the rules - school's still school. | 0:11:34 | 0:11:38 | |
She's a dreamer, that one. Youngest of six and youngest by far. | 0:11:38 | 0:11:43 | |
Gets 'em yearning too soon - | 0:11:43 | 0:11:45 | |
I mean, when their brothers and sisters are all in their teens. | 0:11:45 | 0:11:49 | |
But I say to her, "Anne, you cherish these days, | 0:11:49 | 0:11:53 | |
"cos believe me, cariad, one blink, and the world'll make you old | 0:11:53 | 0:11:57 | |
"in a hundred ways.' | 0:11:57 | 0:11:58 | |
"One blink, and the world'll make you old... | 0:11:59 | 0:12:03 | |
"..in a hundred ways." | 0:12:05 | 0:12:07 | |
Last day for me, too. | 0:12:13 | 0:12:15 | |
So I'll be out tonight. | 0:12:15 | 0:12:17 | |
The Bystanders playing down Troed-y-rhiw. | 0:12:17 | 0:12:19 | |
I saw them at the Social last month. | 0:12:19 | 0:12:22 | |
Like the Beatles and Moody Blues, all in one. | 0:12:22 | 0:12:25 | |
Bit of soul, bit of Motown. | 0:12:26 | 0:12:28 | |
From Merthyr they are. | 0:12:28 | 0:12:30 | |
We helped them, after, to carry their kit back up to the train in the Vale. | 0:12:30 | 0:12:34 | |
I think Will saw, and got jealous a bit! | 0:12:34 | 0:12:36 | |
Still - this bloody mist! | 0:12:38 | 0:12:40 | |
Least it's stopped raining, I suppose. | 0:12:40 | 0:12:42 | |
Old women and sticks it was last night, | 0:12:42 | 0:12:44 | |
streaming black all down the gullies. | 0:12:44 | 0:12:47 | |
We were just used to it, see? | 0:12:47 | 0:12:49 | |
The colour of coal in our water, our river, | 0:12:49 | 0:12:52 | |
was all we'd ever known. | 0:12:52 | 0:12:54 | |
The tips were just there, part of home. | 0:12:54 | 0:12:58 | |
So, no. | 0:12:59 | 0:13:00 | |
We didn't see any wrong in the rain. | 0:13:02 | 0:13:06 | |
Always been the same - that's why we love a small coal charabanc. | 0:13:06 | 0:13:10 | |
Six or seven buses in convoy, away for a day on the beach in Barry. | 0:13:10 | 0:13:15 | |
Then the long drive back, Tomos asleep on my lap, | 0:13:15 | 0:13:20 | |
the smell of the sea in his hair, sand in his toes. | 0:13:20 | 0:13:24 | |
Yeah, he still loves going on those. | 0:13:24 | 0:13:28 | |
Who wouldn't? It's the ocean - | 0:13:28 | 0:13:30 | |
got to beat swimming down the Taff, | 0:13:30 | 0:13:33 | |
or in the streams under the tips, hasn't it? | 0:13:33 | 0:13:37 | |
Not that here's as bad as all that. | 0:13:37 | 0:13:39 | |
Loads to do! The mountain - that's a playground in itself. | 0:13:39 | 0:13:44 | |
Anne goes up there for hide and seek. | 0:13:50 | 0:13:53 | |
And Tomos? Sits on cardboard to slide down the tips. | 0:13:53 | 0:13:56 | |
Could do without those, granted. | 0:13:56 | 0:13:58 | |
But to remove them - well, the cost... | 0:13:58 | 0:14:01 | |
NCB reckon it would close the pit. | 0:14:01 | 0:14:04 | |
And we do all right, too, don't we? | 0:14:04 | 0:14:07 | |
So, yeah, can't complain. A good place to be, Aberfan. | 0:14:07 | 0:14:12 | |
CLASSICAL PIANO INSTRUMENTAL | 0:14:12 | 0:14:15 | |
Bye, Mam. | 0:14:59 | 0:15:01 | |
Bye, love. | 0:15:05 | 0:15:06 | |
And that's how they went. | 0:15:17 | 0:15:19 | |
Out a hundred doors for their last days. | 0:15:20 | 0:15:23 | |
And that's how we said our last goodbyes, | 0:15:23 | 0:15:26 | |
with all the luxury of easy time. | 0:15:26 | 0:15:30 | |
But it was already draining. | 0:15:31 | 0:15:34 | |
Running out like sand in the glass, | 0:15:34 | 0:15:37 | |
like that pile of tailings and shale, | 0:15:37 | 0:15:39 | |
already moving, pressed to a shifting, | 0:15:39 | 0:15:45 | |
under the weight of its own black hand. | 0:15:45 | 0:15:49 | |
Restless with rain, | 0:15:50 | 0:15:53 | |
storm water. | 0:15:53 | 0:15:55 | |
CLOCK CHIMES | 0:15:59 | 0:16:02 | |
And under it, on their way to school... | 0:16:15 | 0:16:18 | |
..my son. | 0:16:19 | 0:16:20 | |
My daughter. | 0:16:23 | 0:16:24 | |
Bye... | 0:16:28 | 0:16:29 | |
..love. | 0:16:31 | 0:16:33 | |
CHILDREN LAUGH | 0:16:39 | 0:16:41 | |
I love this time of year. | 0:16:41 | 0:16:43 | |
-I think it's my favourite. -Harvest festival. | 0:16:43 | 0:16:46 | |
Bonfire Night. | 0:16:46 | 0:16:47 | |
Then after half term we start rehearsing the Nativity. | 0:16:47 | 0:16:51 | |
Sometimes, if we're early, we go into Maypoles - | 0:16:51 | 0:16:54 | |
a grocer's on the high street, just to watch their bobbins, | 0:16:54 | 0:16:57 | |
strung up on a string. | 0:16:57 | 0:16:58 | |
More like a zip-line it is. | 0:16:58 | 0:17:00 | |
-One push from the counter... -And off they go, to the register. | 0:17:00 | 0:17:04 | |
That morning, though, we were late, | 0:17:04 | 0:17:07 | |
so didn't go to Maypoles, | 0:17:07 | 0:17:09 | |
but Anderson's instead - a tuck shop on the hill, | 0:17:09 | 0:17:13 | |
next to Georgie the barber's. | 0:17:13 | 0:17:15 | |
-CHILDREN: -Three shrimps, please, and two flying saucers. | 0:17:15 | 0:17:18 | |
Georgie was still in bed, his shop sign turned to "closed". | 0:17:19 | 0:17:25 | |
He's always said, if it had been the other way round, well - | 0:17:25 | 0:17:30 | |
let's just say he's grateful he dozed. | 0:17:30 | 0:17:33 | |
Shh, listen! | 0:17:33 | 0:17:35 | |
-To what? -The birds. They aren't singing. | 0:17:35 | 0:17:38 | |
-How can you listen to nothing? -It's this mist, isn't it? | 0:17:40 | 0:17:44 | |
What about it? | 0:17:44 | 0:17:45 | |
Can't see, can they? So don't know it's day. | 0:17:45 | 0:17:48 | |
It was true. | 0:17:49 | 0:17:50 | |
The mist was still lying heavy, | 0:17:50 | 0:17:53 | |
so as we walked up to school, | 0:17:53 | 0:17:54 | |
just a few steps apart we'd lose sight of each other. | 0:17:54 | 0:17:58 | |
If only I'd have known. | 0:17:58 | 0:18:00 | |
I'd have made sure to stay closer. | 0:18:01 | 0:18:03 | |
Do you think Mrs Jennings will still make us go out? | 0:18:05 | 0:18:08 | |
Even if at break, it's still like this? | 0:18:08 | 0:18:11 | |
You know her rules - outside, whatever the weather. | 0:18:11 | 0:18:15 | |
What shall we play, if she does? | 0:18:15 | 0:18:16 | |
Hopscotch? Tag? Stuck in the mud? | 0:18:16 | 0:18:19 | |
L-O-N-D-O-N spells London? | 0:18:19 | 0:18:22 | |
Or Dickie five stones, or ginger ginger, maybe later? | 0:18:22 | 0:18:25 | |
You know what my dad said last night, about Mr Beynon? | 0:18:31 | 0:18:35 | |
That he'd beat him in a fight? | 0:18:35 | 0:18:37 | |
That he's in love with Miss Jones? | 0:18:37 | 0:18:39 | |
No! That he used to play for Aberdare, years ago. | 0:18:39 | 0:18:43 | |
At lock he was, and one of their best. | 0:18:43 | 0:18:46 | |
I could believe it. Huge, he was. | 0:18:47 | 0:18:49 | |
I still remember, standing at his feet, | 0:18:50 | 0:18:53 | |
my head well under his chest, looking up, saying, "Sir?" - | 0:18:53 | 0:18:58 | |
and thinking, "Dewww, he goes on for ever!" | 0:18:58 | 0:19:02 | |
We had assembly that day. | 0:19:03 | 0:19:04 | |
The whole school, sitting cross-legged on the parquet floor. | 0:19:06 | 0:19:09 | |
OK, sit down, class. | 0:19:09 | 0:19:12 | |
The whole school, ages five to ten, | 0:19:12 | 0:19:14 | |
singing All Things Bright And Beautiful. | 0:19:14 | 0:19:17 | |
# All things bright and beautiful | 0:19:17 | 0:19:20 | |
# All creatures great and small | 0:19:20 | 0:19:26 | |
# All things wise and wonderful | 0:19:26 | 0:19:30 | |
# The Lord God made them all. # | 0:19:30 | 0:19:34 | |
No. There Is A Green Hill Far Away. | 0:19:34 | 0:19:38 | |
That's what we sang, I think. Can't be sure. | 0:19:39 | 0:19:41 | |
# There is a green hill far away | 0:19:41 | 0:19:45 | |
# Outside a city wall... # | 0:19:45 | 0:19:51 | |
Then we went to our classes - | 0:19:51 | 0:19:53 | |
that I do know. | 0:19:53 | 0:19:55 | |
Each age through a different door. | 0:19:55 | 0:19:57 | |
I sat by the window. I remember that. | 0:20:08 | 0:20:10 | |
Mr Beynon up front, writing the date. | 0:20:10 | 0:20:13 | |
"20th August 1963. | 0:20:19 | 0:20:22 | |
"Dear Sir, re: danger from coal slurry being tipped at the rear | 0:20:22 | 0:20:26 | |
"of Pantglas School, Aberfan. | 0:20:26 | 0:20:28 | |
-DIFFERENT VOICES: -"I am very apprehensive about this matter... | 0:20:28 | 0:20:30 | |
"..as are the councillors and the residents in this area... | 0:20:30 | 0:20:33 | |
"..as they have previously experienced, during periods of rain... | 0:20:33 | 0:20:39 | |
"13th December 1963. | 0:20:39 | 0:20:41 | |
"Dear Sir, re: danger from coal slurry being tipped at the rear... | 0:20:41 | 0:20:43 | |
-"Danger from coal slurry being tipped... -..danger from coal slurry being tipped... | 0:20:43 | 0:20:47 | |
"..tipped at the rear of Pantglas School, Aberfan. | 0:20:47 | 0:20:50 | |
"As a matter of emergency... I feel it is necessary | 0:20:50 | 0:20:52 | |
"that the NCB be made to commit... | 0:20:52 | 0:20:54 | |
"31st January 1964. Dear Sir, re:... | 0:20:54 | 0:20:58 | |
"on the 22nd January I stated that the pipes | 0:20:58 | 0:21:03 | |
"under the Aberfan road were half full of silt | 0:21:03 | 0:21:05 | |
"and that conditions... | 0:21:05 | 0:21:07 | |
"So far as the council are concerned, | 0:21:07 | 0:21:09 | |
"there has been a deterioration in the position... | 0:21:09 | 0:21:11 | |
"As I have said, the silt washed down will now build up... | 0:21:11 | 0:21:15 | |
"I have not yet had a satisfactory reply to the questions raised. | 0:21:15 | 0:21:19 | |
"..sliding in the manner that I have envisaged. | 0:21:19 | 0:21:22 | |
"You are no doubt aware of the tips above Pantglas... | 0:21:22 | 0:21:24 | |
"You are no doubt aware of the tips above Pantglas... | 0:21:24 | 0:21:27 | |
"..and if they were to move, a very serious position would accrue." | 0:21:27 | 0:21:30 | |
October...? | 0:21:32 | 0:21:33 | |
Come on, who can tell me? | 0:21:35 | 0:21:36 | |
October 21st, sir, 1966. | 0:21:37 | 0:21:40 | |
I'd been out in that mist, so thick I could only see | 0:21:42 | 0:21:47 | |
a couple of the poles down below, | 0:21:47 | 0:21:49 | |
the ones that carry the wires up from town. | 0:21:49 | 0:21:53 | |
One, two, maybe three, no more. | 0:21:53 | 0:21:56 | |
Then suddenly...those wires started swinging around, | 0:21:59 | 0:22:05 | |
started jumping. | 0:22:05 | 0:22:06 | |
Like some giant hand was playing at skipping. | 0:22:07 | 0:22:10 | |
RUMBLING | 0:22:10 | 0:22:13 | |
Sir? | 0:22:15 | 0:22:16 | |
-Yes? -Is that thunder? | 0:22:16 | 0:22:18 | |
Maybe, Anne. | 0:22:19 | 0:22:21 | |
But then it got louder than thunder ever can. | 0:22:26 | 0:22:30 | |
And faster. | 0:22:30 | 0:22:32 | |
I looked out the window, saw Jack the Milk, then - | 0:22:33 | 0:22:35 | |
and I still don't know why, I had no time to think - | 0:22:35 | 0:22:37 | |
I put the book I was reading over my head. | 0:22:37 | 0:22:40 | |
-RUMBLING -Seconds later, the darkness came in. | 0:22:40 | 0:22:43 | |
RUMBLING | 0:22:43 | 0:22:47 | |
As if all the eyes in all the world... | 0:22:47 | 0:22:50 | |
had chosen then to blink. | 0:22:50 | 0:22:52 | |
SOUNDS LIKE THUNDER | 0:22:52 | 0:22:56 | |
RUMBLING FADES TO SILENCE | 0:22:56 | 0:22:59 | |
CHATTERING | 0:23:13 | 0:23:17 | |
Thank you very much for sharing. | 0:23:18 | 0:23:20 | |
Glad to. It's good therapy for me. | 0:23:20 | 0:23:22 | |
I was thinking about how you must have felt on that journey, | 0:23:22 | 0:23:25 | |
on the bus on the way home. | 0:23:25 | 0:23:27 | |
I hadn't really thought about it for 50 years. Yeah. | 0:23:27 | 0:23:29 | |
And, you know, when you live in an area, you know lots of people. | 0:23:29 | 0:23:32 | |
-That's right. -Yeah, so, generation yna, stopio siarad Cymraeg 'da pobol. | 0:23:32 | 0:23:36 | |
Obviously, we learnt about it, growing up with history in school.. | 0:23:36 | 0:23:40 | |
-Yes. -..and that kind of thing. | 0:23:40 | 0:23:41 | |
-But the fact that it shouldn't have happened. -Oh, no. | 0:23:41 | 0:23:44 | |
People were talking even months before | 0:23:44 | 0:23:47 | |
about the slag heap, and somebody should do something about it. | 0:23:47 | 0:23:50 | |
Very quiet, please. Very still. Here we go. | 0:23:50 | 0:23:53 | |
I'm a scientist, so I don't believe in spirits and such. | 0:23:57 | 0:24:00 | |
But I've always kept a diary, a page of A4, every night, | 0:24:00 | 0:24:04 | |
so it's there, in black and white. | 0:24:04 | 0:24:06 | |
We couldn't sleep. Me or my wife. | 0:24:07 | 0:24:10 | |
We were living, in East London back then, | 0:24:10 | 0:24:12 | |
us and our baby girl, | 0:24:12 | 0:24:15 | |
but that wasn't where we were from. | 0:24:15 | 0:24:17 | |
No, that was Merthyr and Aberfan. | 0:24:17 | 0:24:20 | |
And that's where we were going in the early dark that morning. | 0:24:20 | 0:24:24 | |
I was getting ready for work, up at the bank. | 0:24:24 | 0:24:27 | |
Hadn't long put on my suit and tie, when a neighbour came over, | 0:24:27 | 0:24:30 | |
asked if he could use our phone. | 0:24:30 | 0:24:32 | |
He seemed...upset. | 0:24:32 | 0:24:35 | |
"Of course," I said. "Why?" | 0:24:35 | 0:24:37 | |
"There's something wrong. A house has collapsed, up at Moy Road." | 0:24:37 | 0:24:41 | |
"Collapsed? How?" | 0:24:41 | 0:24:44 | |
"That's all I was told. But it's happened, just now." | 0:24:44 | 0:24:47 | |
So I dialled 999. Got through to the fire service, and let them know. | 0:24:49 | 0:24:53 | |
As I was on the line, I heard a woman scream. | 0:24:53 | 0:24:57 | |
I looked up. Men were running past my window. | 0:24:57 | 0:25:01 | |
"I think this is something major. How long till you arrive? | 0:25:01 | 0:25:06 | |
"As soon as we can. Your call's been logged at 9.25." | 0:25:06 | 0:25:09 | |
I'd just got back from honeymoon. | 0:25:10 | 0:25:12 | |
A week near Burnham Beeches. | 0:25:12 | 0:25:14 | |
I was still living in Cardiff with my wife and her parents. | 0:25:14 | 0:25:18 | |
I was young, ambitious. Been at the Express for a year and a half. | 0:25:18 | 0:25:22 | |
I wanted to go places, travel. | 0:25:22 | 0:25:24 | |
And I did. | 0:25:24 | 0:25:26 | |
But this morning it was just Merthyr again, on the train - | 0:25:26 | 0:25:30 | |
an early interview with the council's John Beale, | 0:25:30 | 0:25:33 | |
Director of Education. | 0:25:33 | 0:25:34 | |
After I was coming down the steps of his offices, | 0:25:35 | 0:25:38 | |
a car pulled up on the kerb - one of the paper's photographers, | 0:25:38 | 0:25:42 | |
Mel Parry, only 18 back then - | 0:25:42 | 0:25:45 | |
been to the station for the morning call. | 0:25:45 | 0:25:48 | |
There's been a couple of incidents - a domestic fire in Dowlais, | 0:25:48 | 0:25:51 | |
or an outhouse at a school collapsed in Aberfan. | 0:25:51 | 0:25:54 | |
Which do you think, Sam? | 0:25:54 | 0:25:56 | |
Fires are common enough. Let's try the school. | 0:25:56 | 0:25:58 | |
Sounds a bit different. | 0:25:58 | 0:26:01 | |
'So he got in, and I drove on.' | 0:26:01 | 0:26:03 | |
We were approaching Merthyr Vale when we saw the cars in the mist. | 0:26:04 | 0:26:08 | |
A chain of headlights, | 0:26:08 | 0:26:10 | |
blue and red stitched with police, an ambulance. | 0:26:10 | 0:26:13 | |
All coming towards us, away from Aberfan. | 0:26:13 | 0:26:15 | |
I watched them pass, become a river of red in our mirror. | 0:26:16 | 0:26:19 | |
I'd been Mayor's secretary since March of '66. | 0:26:21 | 0:26:25 | |
I'd gone in early that morning. | 0:26:25 | 0:26:27 | |
We lit the fire. Switchboard girl had been in to turn her handle. | 0:26:27 | 0:26:31 | |
All was normal. | 0:26:31 | 0:26:32 | |
Then, suddenly, the men were leaving. | 0:26:34 | 0:26:37 | |
They'd been told, you see, to go to Aberfan. | 0:26:37 | 0:26:39 | |
The offices emptied, to a man. | 0:26:39 | 0:26:41 | |
Just the women left. | 0:26:41 | 0:26:43 | |
No-one could tell us why. We didn't know what to do. | 0:26:43 | 0:26:46 | |
But then the ambulances started streaking through town, | 0:26:48 | 0:26:50 | |
and we knew. | 0:26:50 | 0:26:52 | |
Within the hour, we'd gone from staffing the office, to a crisis HQ. | 0:26:52 | 0:26:58 | |
Must have been around 9.30 as we reached Dowlais Top, | 0:26:58 | 0:27:01 | |
when out of the mist we saw a roadblock. | 0:27:01 | 0:27:04 | |
I pulled up. | 0:27:04 | 0:27:05 | |
"Which way you going?" "Brecon Road, in Merthyr." | 0:27:06 | 0:27:09 | |
Which is when he said, 'A disaster." | 0:27:09 | 0:27:13 | |
That's what he called it, even then. | 0:27:13 | 0:27:15 | |
Of course, we thought it was the pit. | 0:27:15 | 0:27:18 | |
All my father's side is from Aberfan, | 0:27:18 | 0:27:20 | |
and always been miners, too. | 0:27:20 | 0:27:22 | |
The officer was about to signal us on, | 0:27:22 | 0:27:24 | |
when he saw the sticker above my bumper - BMA. | 0:27:24 | 0:27:28 | |
"Are you a doctor?" "Student. Final year." | 0:27:28 | 0:27:32 | |
"But you're medical? We could use your help, if so. | 0:27:32 | 0:27:35 | |
"All the other doctors, see, they're up at St Tydfil's or Merthyr Central for the casualties." | 0:27:35 | 0:27:40 | |
"Of course. Anything I can do." | 0:27:40 | 0:27:43 | |
And that was it. They waved us through. | 0:27:43 | 0:27:46 | |
I followed the crowd running down my street, | 0:27:46 | 0:27:49 | |
turned at the Mack and couldn't believe it. | 0:27:49 | 0:27:51 | |
They're making a film, that's all I could think. | 0:27:51 | 0:27:54 | |
The apex of the roofs, you see, | 0:27:54 | 0:27:56 | |
they were all, well... sitting on rubble. | 0:27:56 | 0:27:59 | |
Everything else had gone. | 0:27:59 | 0:28:02 | |
And then, as I looked, that rubble wept. | 0:28:02 | 0:28:07 | |
The Cardiff-to-Merthyr main burst by the slipping tip. | 0:28:07 | 0:28:11 | |
It just kept coming, turning windows to waterfalls, | 0:28:11 | 0:28:15 | |
but thick and black, | 0:28:15 | 0:28:18 | |
not like water at all. | 0:28:18 | 0:28:20 | |
It looked like the Somme. | 0:28:28 | 0:28:30 | |
That's what I thought when I came round the corner. | 0:28:30 | 0:28:33 | |
A mountain of slurry, with men all over, | 0:28:33 | 0:28:35 | |
like ants, and all of them digging with their fingers, their hands. | 0:28:35 | 0:28:39 | |
I had my notebook, my pen, but I couldn't take them out. | 0:28:39 | 0:28:42 | |
So instead, I climbed up onto it, | 0:28:42 | 0:28:44 | |
that mass of underground waste, | 0:28:44 | 0:28:47 | |
and joined a chain, passing back buckets of slurry. | 0:28:47 | 0:28:50 | |
It was only after a while I noticed - | 0:28:54 | 0:28:56 | |
it was still moving. | 0:28:56 | 0:28:58 | |
The whole dark body of it, | 0:28:58 | 0:29:00 | |
a slow buckle and seep like a small coal muscle, | 0:29:00 | 0:29:04 | |
hard but supple, flexing under our feet. | 0:29:04 | 0:29:06 | |
More people were coming all the time, | 0:29:07 | 0:29:10 | |
with shovels, picks, spades. | 0:29:10 | 0:29:13 | |
I saw firemen further up, pulling out a man in pyjamas. | 0:29:13 | 0:29:17 | |
In one of the classrooms a dram was stuck - | 0:29:17 | 0:29:20 | |
that's what someone said - | 0:29:20 | 0:29:21 | |
and animals, too, from the farm on the hill - | 0:29:21 | 0:29:23 | |
sheep, a cow, all dead. | 0:29:23 | 0:29:26 | |
It sounds odd to say it now, but what it resembled, that scene, | 0:29:35 | 0:29:39 | |
was like something from the gold rush - | 0:29:39 | 0:29:41 | |
like one of those old photos | 0:29:41 | 0:29:42 | |
where every man has staked out his pitch to prospect for wealth. | 0:29:42 | 0:29:46 | |
Except these men were digging for something else, | 0:29:49 | 0:29:53 | |
something more precious, too - their little ones. | 0:29:53 | 0:29:57 | |
Their sons, daughters, nephews, nieces - | 0:29:58 | 0:30:03 | |
still stuck in that school. | 0:30:03 | 0:30:05 | |
Most had never worked so hard in their life, | 0:30:06 | 0:30:09 | |
so began collapsing with pains in their chests. | 0:30:09 | 0:30:11 | |
I did my best to see them right, | 0:30:11 | 0:30:13 | |
treated sprains, cuts - but it wasn't enough. | 0:30:13 | 0:30:16 | |
How could it be, in that landscape of pain? | 0:30:16 | 0:30:20 | |
With that great black tongue lolling out of the mist... | 0:30:20 | 0:30:23 | |
..and just there, nearby, the mothers, | 0:30:25 | 0:30:28 | |
holding each other, knee-deep in the grit, | 0:30:28 | 0:30:32 | |
looking on at what that slipping tip had done. | 0:30:32 | 0:30:35 | |
Soon enough, every able man was working to clear it. | 0:30:40 | 0:30:44 | |
Some children had been pulled out alive, | 0:30:44 | 0:30:46 | |
but everybody knew we didn't have much time. | 0:30:46 | 0:30:49 | |
I heard lorries, and turned to see the miners, up from the colliery. | 0:30:49 | 0:30:55 | |
Hundreds of them, jumping off before those lorries had stopped | 0:30:55 | 0:30:59 | |
and diving straight in to attack that slip. | 0:30:59 | 0:31:01 | |
God, did they work. | 0:31:01 | 0:31:04 | |
And organised us too. | 0:31:04 | 0:31:06 | |
Had teams digging trenches, others making corrugate chutes. | 0:31:07 | 0:31:12 | |
Every now and then a cry would go up, and to a man | 0:31:12 | 0:31:14 | |
we'd all still and listen. | 0:31:14 | 0:31:17 | |
Machines would stop - breaths were held, | 0:31:17 | 0:31:21 | |
until the source of the sound was found, | 0:31:21 | 0:31:24 | |
and then the fury of digging again. | 0:31:24 | 0:31:26 | |
Until around 11... | 0:31:29 | 0:31:30 | |
..when for the first time that day hundreds of us listened, | 0:31:32 | 0:31:37 | |
leant on our shovels, strained every sense... | 0:31:37 | 0:31:41 | |
..only to be met with nothing but silence. | 0:31:42 | 0:31:45 | |
At around 11 we assembled in the chamber | 0:31:47 | 0:31:49 | |
to be informed of the plans. | 0:31:49 | 0:31:52 | |
"We're setting up mortuaries," they said, "wherever we can." | 0:31:52 | 0:31:57 | |
We were stunned, numb. | 0:31:57 | 0:32:00 | |
But of course had to carry on. | 0:32:00 | 0:32:02 | |
There was so much to be done. | 0:32:02 | 0:32:05 | |
I'd taken over with a shovel when a young man came over. | 0:32:05 | 0:32:08 | |
"Went to a classroom," he said. | 0:32:08 | 0:32:10 | |
"You'd better come through, just in case." | 0:32:10 | 0:32:13 | |
So I passed my tool to another and followed him into the ruins of that place. | 0:32:13 | 0:32:16 | |
For years I've had dreams because of what I saw. | 0:32:19 | 0:32:24 | |
The classroom... it was like it had been shaken. | 0:32:24 | 0:32:28 | |
Desks, chairs, a boulder, | 0:32:30 | 0:32:33 | |
a clock angled where it fell. | 0:32:33 | 0:32:35 | |
And there... | 0:32:38 | 0:32:39 | |
..up against the wall... | 0:32:41 | 0:32:42 | |
..no higher than your waist... | 0:32:43 | 0:32:45 | |
..20 children... | 0:32:47 | 0:32:48 | |
..their master in front of them, his arms spread in protection, | 0:32:51 | 0:32:54 | |
trying to save them all. | 0:32:54 | 0:32:55 | |
He was a big man. | 0:32:58 | 0:32:59 | |
But what could he have done? | 0:33:02 | 0:33:04 | |
One teacher against a mountain. | 0:33:04 | 0:33:06 | |
I could see, behind him, their faces, | 0:33:09 | 0:33:12 | |
their mouths still open as if they'd been caught mid-song. | 0:33:12 | 0:33:16 | |
Except you could tell it wasn't a song those mouths had been making, | 0:33:17 | 0:33:22 | |
all crammed as they were with the same black note, | 0:33:22 | 0:33:25 | |
of shale, slurry and grit. | 0:33:25 | 0:33:27 | |
And their eyes as well. | 0:33:32 | 0:33:33 | |
I've never seen a thing so wrong. | 0:33:36 | 0:33:38 | |
There was nothing to be done. | 0:33:40 | 0:33:41 | |
At around four, the women as well as the men | 0:33:51 | 0:33:55 | |
were asked to go to Aberfan. | 0:33:55 | 0:33:57 | |
Once there, we gathered in a hall, unsure what would happen. | 0:33:57 | 0:34:01 | |
But then John Beale, Director of Education, | 0:34:01 | 0:34:04 | |
he came in, school registers under his arm. | 0:34:04 | 0:34:07 | |
He wanted to account for the children, | 0:34:08 | 0:34:11 | |
so began to read out their names. | 0:34:11 | 0:34:13 | |
But their sound on the air, what it conjured, | 0:34:14 | 0:34:18 | |
was too much for him. | 0:34:18 | 0:34:20 | |
He broke down. | 0:34:21 | 0:34:22 | |
And anyway, nobody knew... | 0:34:24 | 0:34:27 | |
..who had survived and who had not. | 0:34:28 | 0:34:30 | |
So each of the women was given a street, | 0:34:32 | 0:34:35 | |
and told to go down it from door to door... | 0:34:35 | 0:34:38 | |
..asking each family a single question | 0:34:40 | 0:34:44 | |
against the grain of natural law. | 0:34:44 | 0:34:46 | |
I was 22. | 0:34:48 | 0:34:49 | |
Each time I knocked, | 0:34:50 | 0:34:52 | |
I prayed the answer would be, "Yes, he's here," | 0:34:52 | 0:34:55 | |
or, "Yes, she's asleep upstairs." | 0:34:55 | 0:34:57 | |
But of course, all too often it wasn't. | 0:34:59 | 0:35:02 | |
I wrote down the name... | 0:35:12 | 0:35:15 | |
or the names, | 0:35:15 | 0:35:18 | |
the ages - | 0:35:18 | 0:35:20 | |
seven, eight, nine. | 0:35:20 | 0:35:24 | |
We'd talk, if they wanted. | 0:35:26 | 0:35:28 | |
And then they'd close their door, softly, | 0:35:30 | 0:35:33 | |
the hand of a husband or wife on their shoulder, | 0:35:33 | 0:35:37 | |
and I'd carry on, with my list of numbers, names and ages, | 0:35:37 | 0:35:44 | |
willing for it not to grow any longer. | 0:35:44 | 0:35:47 | |
At some point, the NCB rescue teams came. | 0:35:49 | 0:35:52 | |
Like the cavalry they were, | 0:35:52 | 0:35:54 | |
in their yellow jackets and hats. | 0:35:54 | 0:35:56 | |
Then the Army, digging trenches, | 0:35:56 | 0:35:58 | |
clearing storm water - from all over country, | 0:35:58 | 0:36:01 | |
feather pumps and tenders. | 0:36:01 | 0:36:02 | |
No-one else would be pulled out alive. | 0:36:03 | 0:36:06 | |
Not from the houses, nor the school. | 0:36:06 | 0:36:09 | |
But still, all you could hear was the sound of digging tools. | 0:36:09 | 0:36:11 | |
And, occasionally, quiet crying. | 0:36:11 | 0:36:15 | |
Because now there was other work to do. | 0:36:16 | 0:36:18 | |
Supporting the parents at Bethania chapel, | 0:36:19 | 0:36:23 | |
small bodies under blankets on every pew, | 0:36:23 | 0:36:25 | |
as they went in to identify their children, | 0:36:25 | 0:36:29 | |
sometimes by face, | 0:36:29 | 0:36:31 | |
but often by just a piece of cloth, a pair of shoes. | 0:36:31 | 0:36:35 | |
Somehow, throughout it all, the workers were fed, watered. | 0:36:37 | 0:36:40 | |
Soup and bread from the Salvation Army, | 0:36:40 | 0:36:43 | |
the Civil Defence. | 0:36:43 | 0:36:45 | |
Even, at one point, a plate of wedding cake. | 0:36:46 | 0:36:50 | |
But then, that's what happens, isn't it? | 0:36:50 | 0:36:52 | |
The world ruptures and we offer what we can. | 0:36:52 | 0:36:56 | |
And that's what happened that night. | 0:36:59 | 0:37:02 | |
To a woman, a man... | 0:37:02 | 0:37:05 | |
..people gave their strength, their sympathy... | 0:37:06 | 0:37:10 | |
..offered up for Aberfan. | 0:37:12 | 0:37:13 | |
When the day started fading, they brought in arc lights, | 0:37:15 | 0:37:17 | |
powered by canisters of gas. | 0:37:17 | 0:37:20 | |
Towers were erected, from which they shone | 0:37:20 | 0:37:23 | |
across that whole expanse of ruin and slurry and dark. | 0:37:23 | 0:37:26 | |
Everyone was covered in muck, me included. | 0:37:28 | 0:37:30 | |
I'd worn my best suit to go and see John Beale, | 0:37:30 | 0:37:34 | |
but now you'd have thought I'd spent the day down the pit. | 0:37:34 | 0:37:36 | |
But we hadn't. It had come to us. | 0:37:37 | 0:37:41 | |
Everyone knew that now. | 0:37:41 | 0:37:44 | |
And when it did, like some heartless pied piper, | 0:37:44 | 0:37:48 | |
it harvested the best of that town. | 0:37:48 | 0:37:51 | |
It was time for me to go. | 0:37:52 | 0:37:54 | |
Dusk was giving to night. I wanted to see my wife. | 0:37:54 | 0:37:58 | |
The Merthyr-to-Cardiff line had been cut, so I got a bus. | 0:37:58 | 0:38:00 | |
I was the only one on it, and like that, | 0:38:00 | 0:38:02 | |
held in the brightness of its upper deck, | 0:38:02 | 0:38:05 | |
I travelled home alone, through the darkness, | 0:38:05 | 0:38:08 | |
being sick at my feet as it went. | 0:38:08 | 0:38:12 | |
I couldn't help seeing one specific sight. | 0:38:12 | 0:38:14 | |
The curtains of a house in a short terraced street | 0:38:16 | 0:38:19 | |
I'd passed earlier that day. | 0:38:19 | 0:38:21 | |
They were closed, which in Wales, not at night, means only one thing - | 0:38:22 | 0:38:26 | |
a house where the seeds of death have been sown. | 0:38:26 | 0:38:29 | |
I walked on, but as I did I looked down the rest of that row, | 0:38:30 | 0:38:35 | |
which is when I saw - | 0:38:35 | 0:38:37 | |
the curtains, they were drawn in every window. | 0:38:37 | 0:38:41 | |
It's amazing, our school. | 0:39:06 | 0:39:08 | |
Got iPads and Astroturf and loads of clubs, too. | 0:39:08 | 0:39:12 | |
Science is my favourite. | 0:39:12 | 0:39:14 | |
We've been learning about Tim Peake all this week. | 0:39:14 | 0:39:17 | |
Six months he was up there! | 0:39:17 | 0:39:19 | |
Mr Davies says tomorrow we'll be able to see it from here. | 0:39:19 | 0:39:23 | |
A man-made star, that's what it'll be like, | 0:39:23 | 0:39:26 | |
just above the mountain ridge. | 0:39:26 | 0:39:28 | |
Slow, but faster than a satellite. | 0:39:28 | 0:39:31 | |
Dancing's more my thing - cha-cha-cha, jive and Latin. | 0:39:31 | 0:39:36 | |
I play football, too, in a mixed team run by the Social. | 0:39:36 | 0:39:40 | |
Unless it's tipping - then I'll stay inside | 0:39:40 | 0:39:42 | |
and listen to One Direction. | 0:39:42 | 0:39:44 | |
It just looked so beautiful, when we first drove in. | 0:39:55 | 0:39:59 | |
We thought it would be a good place for the kids. | 0:39:59 | 0:40:01 | |
And we were right. | 0:40:03 | 0:40:05 | |
It's scenic, quiet. | 0:40:05 | 0:40:08 | |
They feel safe, even at night. | 0:40:08 | 0:40:10 | |
I didn't go to school for about a year after. | 0:40:30 | 0:40:32 | |
None of us did, who'd survived. | 0:40:32 | 0:40:34 | |
They put some caravans down at the site where the Welsh school is now. | 0:40:34 | 0:40:38 | |
Back then it was a tip - coal and slag at the sides. | 0:40:38 | 0:40:40 | |
Toys had been donated, books for us to read. | 0:40:42 | 0:40:44 | |
We could stay, leave, come and go as we pleased. | 0:40:44 | 0:40:47 | |
I didn't live at home, either, for a while, | 0:40:49 | 0:40:51 | |
I went to live with an older sister. | 0:40:51 | 0:40:53 | |
In the street, see, every child except me was dead. | 0:40:53 | 0:40:56 | |
So I was difficult for the other parents to see. | 0:40:57 | 0:41:00 | |
"They took all the roses," | 0:41:02 | 0:41:05 | |
that's what one woman said to me. | 0:41:05 | 0:41:07 | |
"And left us the thorns." | 0:41:07 | 0:41:09 | |
So, yeah, I went away for a bit. | 0:41:17 | 0:41:19 | |
When I came back, my mother was completely bald. | 0:41:19 | 0:41:21 | |
She'd been on the ambulances, taking the bodies. | 0:41:23 | 0:41:25 | |
Weeks later, her hair fell out. | 0:41:27 | 0:41:28 | |
"You're the lucky one," she'd say, when I asked after friends. | 0:41:32 | 0:41:36 | |
"That's all you need to know about." | 0:41:36 | 0:41:38 | |
In the end, they sent us to Mount Pleasant, | 0:41:40 | 0:41:43 | |
but we were too disruptive, that's what they say - | 0:41:43 | 0:41:47 | |
the Pantglas kids. | 0:41:47 | 0:41:49 | |
And still, if there was thunder, lightning, | 0:41:49 | 0:41:51 | |
the teachers would shout, tell us to hide. | 0:41:51 | 0:41:53 | |
They were only young themselves and, like us, still traumatised. | 0:41:53 | 0:41:56 | |
So, yeah, wouldn't be right to say those who'd survived | 0:41:58 | 0:42:01 | |
entirely escaped that tip's landslide. | 0:42:01 | 0:42:04 | |
We got out, yes, | 0:42:05 | 0:42:08 | |
and most of us have got on, too. | 0:42:08 | 0:42:10 | |
But the shadow of that shale, those tailings... | 0:42:11 | 0:42:14 | |
..it's long and deep, and cast inside. | 0:42:16 | 0:42:19 | |
BOTH: How could it not be? | 0:42:21 | 0:42:23 | |
We were children, going to school with our friends. | 0:42:23 | 0:42:27 | |
Then, minutes later, climbing out again without them. | 0:42:28 | 0:42:33 | |
Aberfan is known, isn't it? | 0:42:42 | 0:42:44 | |
Anywhere you go, you say the name, and people are, like, "Oh," nodding, | 0:42:44 | 0:42:47 | |
thinking of the disaster. | 0:42:47 | 0:42:49 | |
But that's not the whole story. | 0:42:49 | 0:42:52 | |
I mean, if it was, they must think we're a miserable place, | 0:42:52 | 0:42:55 | |
sitting round crying, long in the face. But that's not true. | 0:42:55 | 0:42:58 | |
Take the Young Wives' Club. | 0:42:58 | 0:43:00 | |
1960s POP MUSIC PLAYS | 0:43:00 | 0:43:04 | |
I know it grew from what happened, but it grew beyond it, too. | 0:43:04 | 0:43:08 | |
Buses to London, theatre trips. | 0:43:08 | 0:43:10 | |
I reckon that's mostly what they do! | 0:43:12 | 0:43:14 | |
Might sound strange but it's true, | 0:43:17 | 0:43:20 | |
and partly why the group was formed. | 0:43:20 | 0:43:23 | |
We felt guilty, see, whether your child had survived or died, | 0:43:23 | 0:43:29 | |
to be seen laughing in the street, or having fun. | 0:43:29 | 0:43:35 | |
But we were human, | 0:43:35 | 0:43:37 | |
and hurting terribly, all of us, | 0:43:37 | 0:43:42 | |
which is why it was so vital to have somewhere we could go | 0:43:42 | 0:43:46 | |
to laugh, cry, have a recital, | 0:43:46 | 0:43:49 | |
or just talk, get on a bus, | 0:43:49 | 0:43:52 | |
to go out together, to forget, and remember. | 0:43:52 | 0:43:55 | |
Coming together for 50 years or so, | 0:43:57 | 0:44:00 | |
and for many of us, all carrying that same green hollow. | 0:44:00 | 0:44:04 | |
The club's changed, obviously, over the years. | 0:44:11 | 0:44:16 | |
Just last week, we put it to the vote, | 0:44:16 | 0:44:19 | |
and decided - time to drop the "young" from the title. | 0:44:19 | 0:44:23 | |
So just the Wives' Club now we are. | 0:44:23 | 0:44:28 | |
I don't know - it's fine by me, | 0:44:31 | 0:44:35 | |
if what we were, what we've known... | 0:44:35 | 0:44:39 | |
..starts becoming...history. | 0:44:40 | 0:44:43 | |
It was years later, when we were adults, | 0:45:06 | 0:45:09 | |
that we all finally talked about it. | 0:45:09 | 0:45:13 | |
We got in touch, said, "Right, let's do this." | 0:45:13 | 0:45:17 | |
Asked each other questions, shared our stories. | 0:45:17 | 0:45:20 | |
And got really drunk as we did, | 0:45:20 | 0:45:23 | |
as if it was the only way we could let everything out. | 0:45:23 | 0:45:25 | |
Since then, I'd say it's been better. | 0:45:27 | 0:45:29 | |
All of us still carry the scars, of course. | 0:45:31 | 0:45:34 | |
And I couldn't help notice that none of us, when we met, | 0:45:35 | 0:45:39 | |
had held down relationships - | 0:45:39 | 0:45:41 | |
either never married, or had, then got divorced. | 0:45:41 | 0:45:45 | |
We'd mostly been successful, though. | 0:45:45 | 0:45:49 | |
A barrister, a writer, an accountant, a mayor. | 0:45:49 | 0:45:53 | |
As if, having survived that collapsing pile, | 0:45:55 | 0:45:59 | |
we'd made a pact with ourselves | 0:45:59 | 0:46:02 | |
to make the living we'd been given worthwhile. | 0:46:02 | 0:46:05 | |
I studied hard, in the end. | 0:46:09 | 0:46:12 | |
Went to university, then worked for years in the City. | 0:46:12 | 0:46:16 | |
I felt, in a way, like I had a duty, | 0:46:17 | 0:46:21 | |
to succeed not just for me, but for my friends as well - | 0:46:21 | 0:46:27 | |
the children in that class who never got the chance | 0:46:27 | 0:46:31 | |
to be what they hoped... | 0:46:31 | 0:46:32 | |
..or to even try. | 0:46:35 | 0:46:37 | |
So, yeah... | 0:46:39 | 0:46:40 | |
..I think that's why. | 0:46:42 | 0:46:44 | |
CLASSICAL PIANO INSTRUMENTAL | 0:46:44 | 0:46:52 | |
There was, at least, a public conversation. | 0:46:54 | 0:46:57 | |
The funerals first, of course. | 0:46:57 | 0:47:00 | |
A kind of communal speech of grief - | 0:47:00 | 0:47:04 | |
the grave like a trench, | 0:47:04 | 0:47:07 | |
the hearses, the crowds, the flowers. | 0:47:07 | 0:47:11 | |
But we had to heal, and I'd say we have. | 0:47:48 | 0:47:51 | |
Whole place is greening back up. | 0:47:53 | 0:47:55 | |
Go up the canal bank, in July, August, | 0:47:56 | 0:47:59 | |
when the thistle heads are seeding, | 0:47:59 | 0:48:01 | |
catching the light, early berries budding, | 0:48:01 | 0:48:05 | |
chaffinches singing. | 0:48:05 | 0:48:07 | |
Well, beautiful it is. | 0:48:07 | 0:48:10 | |
I've always tried to do my bit - | 0:48:14 | 0:48:17 | |
set up a scheme for apprenticeships, that kind of thing. | 0:48:17 | 0:48:20 | |
Can't say why. | 0:48:22 | 0:48:24 | |
Because I was there, perhaps... | 0:48:26 | 0:48:28 | |
..or because I'm still here. | 0:48:29 | 0:48:31 | |
Don't get me wrong. | 0:48:37 | 0:48:38 | |
It's not like there hasn't been anger. | 0:48:39 | 0:48:41 | |
Of course there has. Still is. | 0:48:43 | 0:48:45 | |
I remember on the Monday after, | 0:48:47 | 0:48:50 | |
when it first made itself known, | 0:48:50 | 0:48:53 | |
when our silent grief became heard. | 0:48:53 | 0:48:55 | |
It was at an inquest at Zion chapel, into the deaths of 30 children. | 0:48:57 | 0:49:02 | |
The coroner, he was reading out the causes - | 0:49:04 | 0:49:08 | |
asphyxia, multiple injuries... | 0:49:08 | 0:49:12 | |
..when from out the crowd, a father stood. | 0:49:14 | 0:49:17 | |
No, sir. Buried alive by the National Coal Board. | 0:49:18 | 0:49:23 | |
That's what I want on the official record. | 0:49:23 | 0:49:25 | |
The coroner, Mr Hamilton, paused... | 0:49:27 | 0:49:31 | |
..and in the silence, a woman cried out... | 0:49:33 | 0:49:38 | |
They have killed our children! | 0:49:38 | 0:49:40 | |
Then there were the tribunals. | 0:49:45 | 0:49:47 | |
Another public conversation, | 0:49:47 | 0:49:50 | |
and necessary, I'm sure, | 0:49:50 | 0:49:53 | |
though many found it hard to settle with its conclusion. | 0:49:53 | 0:49:56 | |
No-one prosecuted, no-one sacked | 0:49:56 | 0:50:00 | |
nor forced to resign - | 0:50:00 | 0:50:03 | |
and with the NCB claiming no knowledge or sign | 0:50:03 | 0:50:05 | |
of a spring under the tip. | 0:50:05 | 0:50:08 | |
After generations had swum in it. | 0:50:08 | 0:50:10 | |
Corporate manslaughter, that's what it amounted to. | 0:50:12 | 0:50:16 | |
"Not wickedness, but ignorance, ineptitude | 0:50:16 | 0:50:20 | |
"and a failure of communication." | 0:50:20 | 0:50:22 | |
That's what the final report claimed, | 0:50:23 | 0:50:26 | |
and that the NCB carried the blame for a lack of regulation. | 0:50:26 | 0:50:30 | |
I was on the tip removal committee. | 0:50:40 | 0:50:42 | |
Had to be, really. | 0:50:42 | 0:50:44 | |
Like everyone else, I wanted them gone. | 0:50:44 | 0:50:48 | |
Not surprising, when you think what they'd done. | 0:50:48 | 0:50:52 | |
But after the tribunal, they were inspected, | 0:50:52 | 0:50:56 | |
and the NCB declared them safe. | 0:50:56 | 0:50:59 | |
"No reason to go," that's what they said. | 0:51:01 | 0:51:04 | |
Well, we wouldn't take no. | 0:51:04 | 0:51:06 | |
Because that wasn't the point, was it? | 0:51:06 | 0:51:10 | |
Safe or not - and we'd heard that before - | 0:51:10 | 0:51:13 | |
we didn't want to see them each day when we opened our door. | 0:51:13 | 0:51:18 | |
Piles of the stuff on the mountainside, | 0:51:18 | 0:51:22 | |
dug out, for many of us, by our very own hands. | 0:51:22 | 0:51:27 | |
It took my boy away. | 0:51:29 | 0:51:31 | |
That was reason enough for me. | 0:51:48 | 0:51:50 | |
But eventually they went. | 0:51:50 | 0:51:52 | |
Which is when we were left asking, "What next?" | 0:51:52 | 0:51:55 | |
Removing those tips, see, it brought us together, | 0:51:57 | 0:52:02 | |
and in a way - no denying - it helped, | 0:52:02 | 0:52:06 | |
and we didn't want that helping to end. | 0:52:06 | 0:52:09 | |
So, we had a meeting and someone said, "Why not a choir?" | 0:52:10 | 0:52:16 | |
# And I will sing with the understanding also | 0:52:16 | 0:52:22 | |
# Alleluia, alleluia | 0:52:22 | 0:52:25 | |
# Alleluia. # | 0:52:25 | 0:52:29 | |
The choir's changed, of course - lots of new men - | 0:52:30 | 0:52:34 | |
but the spirit hasn't. | 0:52:34 | 0:52:36 | |
It's still the same, we're still here, and still singing. | 0:52:38 | 0:52:42 | |
# For my heart would break | 0:52:42 | 0:52:45 | |
# If you should wake and see me go... # | 0:52:45 | 0:52:51 | |
I won't lie - went off the rails for a bit. | 0:52:53 | 0:52:57 | |
Lots of us did. And not just the kids. | 0:52:57 | 0:53:00 | |
Hardly a surprise. I mean, we've had our own daughter since, so I know. | 0:53:00 | 0:53:05 | |
Is anything more alive than a... eight, nine-year-old child? No. | 0:53:05 | 0:53:10 | |
So imagine losing all that life at once, | 0:53:11 | 0:53:16 | |
all that talk and song and dance and...and fight. | 0:53:16 | 0:53:21 | |
Enough to put any place out for the count. | 0:53:23 | 0:53:25 | |
But we got back up, didn't we? That's for sure. | 0:53:27 | 0:53:30 | |
As a village, and on our own. | 0:53:31 | 0:53:33 | |
Me, I took up at JJ's, became a mechanic - | 0:53:34 | 0:53:39 | |
married Barbara, too. | 0:53:39 | 0:53:41 | |
I don't know, we'd always fancied each other. | 0:53:41 | 0:53:44 | |
Even though my brother died, while her sister survived, | 0:53:44 | 0:53:47 | |
we both still lost, in a way. | 0:53:47 | 0:53:50 | |
Maybe that drew us closer. I like to think so. | 0:53:50 | 0:53:53 | |
I still think of my brother every day. | 0:53:57 | 0:54:00 | |
What type of man he'd have been. | 0:54:00 | 0:54:03 | |
If he'd had kids, in their faces, | 0:54:03 | 0:54:06 | |
how much of him, or me, we'd have seen. | 0:54:06 | 0:54:09 | |
But you've got to move on, haven't you? | 0:54:13 | 0:54:17 | |
But you've got to move on, haven't you? | 0:54:18 | 0:54:20 | |
But you've got to move on, haven't you? | 0:54:22 | 0:54:24 | |
But you've got to move on, haven't you? | 0:54:24 | 0:54:27 | |
But you've got to move on, haven't you? | 0:54:29 | 0:54:32 | |
But you've got to move on, haven't you? | 0:54:32 | 0:54:34 | |
But you've got to move on, haven't you? | 0:54:34 | 0:54:36 | |
But you've got to move on. | 0:54:39 | 0:54:42 | |
Haven't you? | 0:54:42 | 0:54:43 | |
I'm going to be a painter, like Tom's dad! | 0:55:08 | 0:55:11 | |
-A dancer on Strictly! -A goalkeeper for Chelsea. | 0:55:11 | 0:55:13 | |
A pilot or hairdresser. | 0:55:13 | 0:55:15 | |
A fish-and-chip man. | 0:55:15 | 0:55:17 | |
A teacher. | 0:55:17 | 0:55:19 | |
For me, it's about opening the world to these children. And their eyes. | 0:55:19 | 0:55:23 | |
Letting them see what they could do, | 0:55:23 | 0:55:25 | |
who they could be. | 0:55:25 | 0:55:27 | |
-A rugby player. -A freerunner. -A singer. | 0:55:27 | 0:55:30 | |
-A soldier. -A nurse. | 0:55:30 | 0:55:32 | |
Because you can only aspire to what you can imagine, or see. | 0:55:32 | 0:55:36 | |
-A farmer. -A miner. | 0:55:36 | 0:55:38 | |
-A lorry driver. -A dinner lady. | 0:55:38 | 0:55:41 | |
All that, though - the teaching, the running the school - | 0:55:41 | 0:55:44 | |
that comes easily enough to me. | 0:55:44 | 0:55:46 | |
But then there are the other things that are harder to negotiate. | 0:55:46 | 0:55:48 | |
-A football player. -An actor. | 0:55:48 | 0:55:51 | |
A doctor. | 0:55:51 | 0:55:52 | |
The first man on the moon - an astronaut! | 0:55:52 | 0:55:56 | |
Each year, for example, we mark the disaster's date. | 0:55:56 | 0:55:59 | |
And we should. | 0:55:59 | 0:56:01 | |
But it's difficult, sometimes, to know exactly what to do. | 0:56:01 | 0:56:04 | |
Some want to talk, to remember. | 0:56:04 | 0:56:06 | |
Others - they stay quiet, they try to forget. | 0:56:06 | 0:56:09 | |
And here, well, they're children - | 0:56:10 | 0:56:12 | |
some the same age as those who died. | 0:56:12 | 0:56:15 | |
So, yes, we teach it, but gently, as part of the general history. | 0:56:15 | 0:56:19 | |
The way I see it, more and more, is that we're all carbon, aren't we? | 0:56:24 | 0:56:28 | |
At least, that's what Tom keeps telling me. | 0:56:28 | 0:56:31 | |
And what happened here... | 0:56:33 | 0:56:34 | |
..it was the most terrible weight. | 0:56:36 | 0:56:38 | |
The worst you can imagine. | 0:56:41 | 0:56:42 | |
A weight on lives, families, the community, the town. | 0:56:44 | 0:56:47 | |
But what happens to carbon under pressure, | 0:56:50 | 0:56:53 | |
if you keep pressing down? | 0:56:53 | 0:56:56 | |
Well, at first, you get coal. | 0:56:56 | 0:56:59 | |
A darkness that burns. | 0:57:00 | 0:57:02 | |
But keep pressing long and hard enough | 0:57:04 | 0:57:06 | |
and some of that coal turns diamond... | 0:57:06 | 0:57:09 | |
..and some of that darkness light. | 0:57:10 | 0:57:14 | |
Now, I'm not saying we're all diamonds here, of course I'm not. | 0:57:14 | 0:57:17 | |
But I do think that when so many have felt the same pressure, | 0:57:17 | 0:57:22 | |
at exactly the same time, then sometimes, in places, | 0:57:22 | 0:57:25 | |
we're pushed through till we shine. | 0:57:25 | 0:57:27 | |
An unexpected brightness... | 0:57:30 | 0:57:32 | |
..made both of that darkness | 0:57:33 | 0:57:36 | |
and that sharing of weight... | 0:57:36 | 0:57:38 | |
..its source buried under years. | 0:57:41 | 0:57:44 | |
But there, deeply rooted in our memories... | 0:57:45 | 0:57:49 | |
..a day... | 0:57:51 | 0:57:52 | |
..a date. | 0:57:53 | 0:57:54 | |
# All things bright and beautiful | 0:58:02 | 0:58:06 | |
# All creatures great and small | 0:58:06 | 0:58:11 | |
# All things wise and wonderful... # | 0:58:11 | 0:58:15 | |
SINGING FADES | 0:58:15 | 0:58:17 |