Share your memories of the day - use the form below or email longer stories and photos to wales.southeast@bbc.co.uk
your comments
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John Winsor from Dowlais, Merthyr tydfil
The distaster and its effects should be taught in schools. We do not seem to learn that greed kills lives and communities.
Lynette Rees, Merthyr Tydfil
I was almost six years old when the disaster happened and at school in Merthyr. I remember wondering where my father and grandfather were going all the time - it wasn't until years later that I learned they had both been one of the many people who took part in the rescue attempt. Both my grandfathers were miners and were involved. A service was held at St David's Church, Merthyr, and I wondered why my mother and so many adults were crying all the time. I just didn't understand what it was all about. Now I'm a mother myself, of course I understand.
Elizabeth Powles from Nelson (Wales)
My father used to tell what he saw, and what he saw were bodies scattered everywhere, parents crying and dust everywhere. I told my daughter who is now 10 years old so we went to the memorial garden in Aberfan. She looked around and really just thought about the incident.
Kate Docherty
I still after all those years still remember the Aberfan disaster. I was only 14 years old and I remember our teacher telling us about it in class not long after it happened. We as a class were stunned as our school was also on a hill, but thankfully not on a miners colliery. But still as kids we were concerned. I am 57 now and I still think of the Aberfan disaster and why it's not recognised today like all the other disasters.
Sue Welham from Suffolk
I was born in Mountain Ash Glamorgan but we were living in London and I remember the Aberfan disaster very vividly. I had friends who lived on a farm in Aberfan and has spent many happy hours there.I was about 18 when it happened. I saw it on the news but I couldn't take it in and I took the dog for a walk. I cried from the time I left the house until I returned and could not get it out of my mind. My friends were fortunately alright and their son was one of the children who survived. When my children were small we visited our friends at the farm again and they took us to the cemetery. I found it very moving and especially so as by that time some of the Mums and Dads were buried with their children. It certainly brings it home to you when you have small children of your own and the people of Aberfan are a lasting memorial to the way they have coped with this tragedy.
George Coghlan, British Columbia, Canada
I was 17, living in Treforest and attending Pontypridd Boys' Grammar. I heard of the disaster from other boys just before the start of a chemistry class. The news reports said there were plenty of volunteers that day, but I wondered if they might be able to use someone the evening of the next day. So I caught the bus to Aberfan, and while walking to the village up the muddy street I heard the tramp, tramp of marching footsteps. Around the corner ahead of me came a body of soldiers, covered in mud and obviously very tired, going off duty. Just behind them, near the corner, was a chapel, the basement door of which was lit by a single, naked lightbulb. It looked terribly bleak and forlorn, and I later learned it was being used as a makeshift mortuary. I was tasked with running messages up and down the horrid slide for most of the night, past the still-raging stream. At one point I was sent to a house across the road, a few yards from the black mass of the slide, for a tea break. The little living room was filled with rescue workers talking, but there was one woman, presumably the householder, sitting on the settee, oblivious to everyone else, but having an animated conversation with the wall in front of her. More than anything else, that poor woman's anguish brought home to me the horror that all the residents of Aberfan had been subjected to. I have often thought of her since, and wondered what became of her.
Peter Mackenzie, Tasmania
I have never forgotten Aberfan, nor has my wife Karen. I was 14 at the time, and she was 9.We both come from coal-mining families, mine from Newcastle, New South Wales where we had Rhondda & Stanford Pits, as well as Swansea and Cardiff towns. Karens dad was a coal-miner from Newcastle-on-Tyne before emigrating to Australia. And that terrible day involved so many children.We had planned to visit Aberfan to pay our respects a few years ago, but tried to go to too many places, and just ran out of time. So thank you for giving us the chance to say how sorry we were and are to those who lost folks, and everyone who was involved.
Julia Guest, Reigate
I was an eleven year old at school in Cardiff when the disaster happened. We had heard the sirens going along North Road all morning but it was only after lunch when one of the girls came back from lunch that we realised what had happened. She had seen it on the lunchtime news. We said prayers before afternoon lessons for the children and their families. I have never forgotten the sound of the sirens or looking across the valley towards the cemetery afterwards.
Charles Nunn. Wirral
In 1966 I was a Detective Sergeant on No.8 (Welsh) Regional Crime Squad. As the disaster occurred in the area policed by the old Merthyr Borough Police, a very small Force, we were asked by the Chief Constable to set up and run the mortuary. By noon on that Friday, we had establshed the mortuary in Bethania Chapel in Moy Road. The facilities were totally inadequate but we adapted and our Salvation Army friends were great scroungers of equipment including 6 bottles of brandy every day to top up our hot drinks in the very cold and obviously unheated chapel. We worked in twelve hour shifts in very sad conditions with relatives arriving throughout the day and night to identify the 144 bodies. We dealt with them with professionalism and sympathy. A visit by the Duke of Edinburgh and the Prime Minister passed almost unnoticed as we concentrated on our work. It took us 15 days before the final body was indentified and our records could be handed over to the Merthyr Coroner's Officer.
Christine Crocker, Crickhowell
Where do I start. It is 42 long years since we said goodbye to many of our friends that died that dreadful Friday morning at our school at Aberfan. But each day since then you wake up and think of that sad time and why we survived, I often think it would have been easier for us to have gone with them because the guilt one feels of surviving is something very hard to deal with. It is OK for people to say we were the lucky ones, may be so to all the people looking on ... but believe it, it has been a very hard life to live because you can't leave it go. I have often asked why did I survive and I still ask that question 42 years later. I have been married 31 years now - my husband has lots of friends and when he talks about his school days and growing up I cannot join in because what friends did I have or have today from my childhood? I left Aberfan 7 years after the disaster. My parents found me a job in Crickhowell so I could get away from Aberfan. I met my husband and went on to have 2 daughters and now 5 grandchildren, 4 boys and now a little girl - maybe that is why I survived. To the world we look a normal family, but what we have been through as a family due to Aberfan has been dreadful. Living through a disaster like Aberfan it is always an upward fight and still is today, now I am 52 it is no closer. Looking on the internet at what people believe and think of Aberfan, belive me Aberfan has not moved on since that dreadful day and until the survivors are no longer here it is not going to. We have been dealt a rotten deal by British Coal - not once have they said sorry to us. Not even 42 years later. Our education was stopped which gave us no future, and it makes one so frustrated. I sued British Coal some years back but of course lost as you would expect. How do us, the surviving children of Aberfan, get justice for what we as survivors lost? Who cares - not British Coal that is for sure. Or should I now say our government. If you the BBC can help us the surviving children come to terms with what WE went through and get an apology from whoever maybe we can move on.
John Lloyd, Cheshire (originaly from Cross Keys)
In October 2008 we brought our two grand daughters aged 9 and 12 to stay in Wales, not far from Aberfan. We went to the cemetery to pay our respects and to explain to our two girls the heavy price paid for coal, so that they will never forget the price this village paid. The memorial is so well kept and a credit to those responsible for its upkeep. God Bless you all
Leslie Roberts, Morpeth, once of Gelligaer
Who can forget Aberfan. I was 6 at the time and learnt of what had happened after school. I can still remember how sad I felt when I realised that children like me would never grow up.Do I regret the closing of the pits? Not one bit. I lost 2 grandfathers to dust as well as a number of uncles and a cousin. Aberfan happened because no-one cared about the people, only about money. Too many people died for coal and I will not mourne its passing. Bless all the children from Aberfan.
Neil Turner, Pengam, now Oman
I had not long turned 7 that month. I don't have clear memories of seeing the event on television - just vague memories of the grey flickering of the BBC News titles flashing over the bottom of the screen as they ran film of people digging with their hands. I think my parents and grandparents must have protected me from it because, living in Pengam, from my grandparents' house in Nydfa Road you could see our local tip lowering over the railway line that led to the pit, Bargoed way. Those foggy October nights playing in the road were full of the new Doctor Who and the Daleks, tempered with a distinct unease at the thought that I was enjoying myself when I shouldn't be. I knew what Aberfan was - it was the first time that anything from our lives had been put on television, and it was not fun or entertaining because it was the truth, and it was dangerous. And it was what we lived under every day. An unspoken thing. I remember a couple of years later noticing that that same distant tip had been greened by grass - "to stop it slipping" I was told. It was supposed to make us feel better. True, it made me feel a shade more safe. But it was wrong: it had been done too late. And it was no good pretending that it made things alright. I knew what all around me knew: that there had been no caring for Valleys folk and miners until lack of interest killed local children. Then they tried to metaphorically cover it all under a blanket of green. It was the falsest use of Nature I had ever come across.
Josie from Manchester
I remember asking my father about the disaster after I had my first child 17 years ago. We had been watching a documentary on the disaster. I had never seen my father cry before, he looked at his grandson weeping for the lost. He remember's that tragedy like it was yesterday. That's how I will always remember it. I always mark the event and by standing still for a few moments in remembrance.
David Manning, Cardiff
Lonely lies the valley
mourning its dead
on this Sunday morning
all tears have fled
into the crying hearts
It's raining in the valley
and on black tips
on this Sunday morning
while prayers on lips
are spoken through the hearts
It moved toward the valley
to school it crept
on that Friday morning
while terror slept
in embryonic hearts
To school, into the valley
and covered it over
in the chill of the morning
that day in October
a hundred and sixteen
little Welsh children
died at Aberfan
Quiet lies the valley
mourning its dead
on this Sunday morning
this poem is read
and the children remembered
in our hearts.
Steve Ball Longton Stoke-on-trent
Once again as another year passes, we are coming around to the tragic date in October once again. Mind you only a few months go by every year before I think of all you people in Aberfan anyway. I wonder if it might have been different for me, if I hadn't have been at home, as a 10 year old back from school that lunchtime as they televised the black and white pictures. Up until then the 60s were all glory. Except for JFK and Martin Luther King. After Aberfan, for me they were tainted forever. But has man learnt from these tragedies? I don't think so. I wonder how many minds it is etched onto every year? It's something that's never left me. I am now 52, it bothers me greatly that some of those kids would have been my age group by now. As I look at my own kids my youngest, she is 10. I flash back to those little angels lost on that day. I see them hopefully smiling and at play somewhere safe now, still as happy young children. It gives me greater strength to help my children at all times. As I think what could have been. RIP forever little ones.... Always thinking of you.... A part of me went on that day too.
Colin Brake USA
Having just returned from Australia I saw the disaster through a TV screen in a shop window in london. Being brought up in Ystrad Mynach, a relation lost both boys when the tip slipped. My brother living in Ystrad Mynach was one of the rescue people. His comment when he came home at night was "the Welsh are very Brave", meaning the parents were digging for their children who were buried 30 and more feet under them. God bless them all and hopefully more care will be taken to ensure safety in all things.
Gareth Roberts (Ex Treharris)
Having read most of the comments above, this day is etched in my mind forever. Having been in school in Treharris at the time of the disaster, I and my friend made our way over the mountain top over Twyn-Y Garreg and down into Aberfan. The view from the top of that mountain overlooking Merthyr Vale and Aberfan will remain in my memory forever. Whilst all our thoughts were with the children and their families, little was mentioned about the skill of the miners who dug their way in to get the survivors out. God bless those who perished, God bless those who survived and may God bless the army of volunteers who at the time gave their all and more to help this community. The Salvation Army were all Saints.
Martin Noyes from Godalming, Surrey.
In october 1966, I was nearly 6 and I remember at our primary school assembley in Surrey, our headmaster, Mr Roberts, who was Welsh, telling us about the disaster and to asking us to pray for all those lost children. My dad said that they had been at school assembley saying their prayers when disaster struck. Having seen two documentries on the disaster and read about it, that was not the case. Everyone was in their classrooms and lessons had started. However I do wonder, in view of what happened, where was God that morning?
Angela Jones from Paignton, Devon
I have just read comments from Stanley Lewis about the Aberfan disaster. I too live in Paignton in Devon, and have watched a concert by the Ynysowen Male Voice choir and Riviera Brass in Torquay just last month. I visited Aberfan on 3 August this year, and it was a most moving experience for me too. My father was a miner in Ferndale and the disaster brought him to tears. I was 8 years old at the time and although we had moved to the Midlands by this time, it still affected my father deeply. God bless them all.
Gina Wood from birmingham
My great, great uncle was Chief Fireman and he helped the children out in the Aberfan disaster in 1966, a year after my mother was born. All the children he pulled out had sadly died and of course, he was very upset because 5 and 6 year old children had been killed. I have one last memory of him from when I was a baby before he tragically died. But I'm glad he died peacefully and me and the rest of my family knowing he did everything he could to help my family and those children and families due to the terrible landslide
Lynne Walsh, London
I'd already written a few words here, but I hope I can add something, as I was at the birthday celebration recently [90th] of my wonderful Auntie Peg, when her eldest son, John Evans, of Abercwmboi, was telling us about his part that day at Aberfan. So, to respond to Elizabeth Jones here: yes, our John, a former miner, recalls it all as if it were yesterday. But as well as the trauma [mothers, exhausted, fingers bleeding, digging and immovable] he remembers the soul of the community - people from all over the Valleys and beyond - when people turned up and said to him, as he dug "Tell me what I can do to help". My cousin John is a good man, in many ways, and Aberfan is part of what has made him so.
Rozzea Gardner, California, USA
I was ten years old and still living in England at the time. I remember feeling so horrified and couldn't stop listening to the news. All those poor children. Naturally, all the adults around me talked of nothing else and would share the latest news with me every day after school. Then, I would watch the news or read the newspaper for myself. I actually couldn't talk for a few days. The disaster has stayed with me all these years and, for no clear reason at all, memories of that awful day will come flooding back. Which is how I found this website. I needed to read abut it and remember. Someone once made a comment to me about the tragedy of September 11 in New York: "There's never been anything like that." I looked at him without answering. My thoughts were filled with Aberfan.
Dr Don Anderson from Cardiff
I was working for Glamorgan County Council as Divisional Medical Officer in Caerphilly/Ystrad Mynach and was called to assist immediately if happened. I was the first Public Health Doctor on site. I had to certify as dead the first child to be taken out and remained at the scene (with rest periods) for about six days. It was certainly a very harrowing experience. My wife was in hospital at the time and worried why I had suddenly stopped my regular visiting.
Beth, Swansea
I'm not old enough to remember the disaster itself but I have been taught about it in school and am currently looking further into it for my Drama exam. Everything I have read has reduced me to tears including the memories on this page, I would just like to express my deepest sympathies for all who were involved and to all the people who helped dig through the slurry, you are ALL true heroes!!
Pamela Pearson (Ryan) from Merthyr Tydfil
I was 15 at the time of the disaster and was in Quakers Yard school which is in the next vally to Aberfan. I remember sitting in a History lesson and hearing all the emergency services screaming past. We were all so unaware then that a terrible thing had just happened. When news filltered through we were all in shock. Our schoolyard was a mountain and I remember looking up at that mountain and trying to imagine what those poor children and teachers had felt. One of the teachers Mr Bynon had taught me in the junior school. I will never forget that day and still feel for the relatives and friends of those who lost their lives that terrible day.
Graham Williams, Wattstown, Rhondda
I was driving towards pontypridd on the A470 when I rounded what was then known as fiddlers elbow. I was confronted by an endless flow of emergency vehicles travelling up the A470 towards merthyr. I sensed at the time that something serious must have happened. But when I reached home and heard the news, it was only then that the enormity of the tradgedy hit me. As a then father of six small children I felt the deepest of sorrow for the victims of the disaster, which we all discovered latercould have been avoided. God bless them all.
Terry Brooks-Manchester
Many people say that they remember where they were on the day that JFK was assassinated. I cannot. However I do remember exactly where I was on the day of the Aberfan tragedy. I was working in a customers office in Newtown on the Welsh borders when the news came over a radio. Everyone stopped talking, and there was a stunned silence of dis-belief. Coming from a family where several uncles were coal-miners, and my great-grandfather having died in a roof fall, I was used to hearing about mining tragedies. This was something totally different. To imagine all these little innocents being robbed of their lives is something that will live with me all my life. My eyes fill with tears even now remembering the horror of that day.RIP little ones, I hope that you found your heaven.
Laura
I live near Aberfan - we learnt it in school. I really feel sorry about all of it. My dad was helping them out at the time. RIP every one.
Lynne Walsh, London
My memories are of the 7-year-old I was (in Abernant, Aberdare), when the disaster happened, five days after my birthday. The grown-ups seemed to be clustered around the TV, constantly watching the news bulletins, most of them in tears. Everyone seemed more protective of us - sometimes an auntie or neighbour would hug one of us, for no reason we understood. It was a confusing time. It wasn't long before I realised that I was lucky - our school was at the top of a mountain, I thought, not under one. I've thought about those children, of my age and my upbringing, very often. I used to think that part of the Lord's Prayer - "through the valley of the Shadow of Death" meant that the shadow had passed over Abernant, sparing us, and settled on Aberfan. The phrase I use most often now, 41 years on, is "life's too short"...
Debbie Williams (Clyant)
I can remember the day well I was 5 at the time and heard on the school speakers. My first thought was for my friend who had just moved from swansea rd 3 weeks before down to Aberfan she was 6 yrs old and died in the disaster. I will never forget that day. God bless them all.
Michael Stanway, British Columbia, Canada
I was working in Tredegar and was driving back to Aberdare on the Heads of the Valley road and was stopped at the junction into Merthyr and I think it was the police that told me what had happened in Aberfan and asked me not to drive into the valley unless I had to. I felt so sick at heart and totally frustrated - and why should little children suffer over the greed of the former mine owners, and the National Coal Board who inherited the responsibities. So sad, sad, sad.
Sian Trimm, Crumlin, Gwent
I was five at the time of the Aberfan disaster. I remember the funerals on television and there was a great sense of mourning throughout the Welsh valleys, but also anger and resentment towards those in control of the industry. Ten years ago I discovered a very poignant poem about a victim of the disaster named Martine Anne Short, I borrowed it to a work colleague and it was not returned to me. The poem was called 'Trafalgar Day' - please if anyone knows of this poem please post it on line as I have failed to find another copy.
Rose Chappell from Bristol
I was seven the year of Aberfan and lived in Tonyrefail, which is just down the valley. We had a slag heap that was visible from our school - Cwmlai Primary School. I remember it so well, watching the television and thinking it could have been our school. I remember having a 2 minute silence for all the children in school assembly. It had a great impact on us all - even at that young age. Even later on I sang in a choir (Richard Williams Singers) and everytime we sang at functions on return, if we passed that part of the valley, we would always have the graveyard (which was lighted) pointed out to us and we would always look over in silence. I cry still when seeing TV programmes about it and cried today reading the memories. I will never forget it.
Elizabeth (O'Brien) Jones, Aberfan
I am a survivor of this disaster and was one of the eight most seriously injured - I was in church village hospital for some time. I have found it most upsetting that everyone feels for the survivors and for the bereaved but there is never any thought for the wonderful people who turned up that day to do what they did. By this I mean that no-one seems to think about what those people go through. After all they must have seen some sights so what they saw must be haunting them every day of their lives. I would like to say a very big thank you to ALL aho helped on that black Friday and I wish them all well.
Gary Hollett in Ontario, Canada
I'm from Aberfan, and was 6 at the time of the disaster. My mom, dad, brother and grandparents had just moved to Ilford Essex. My dad and granddad were looking for work in the car factories of London. If we had not have moved, I too would have been in the school that day. Even as a small child of 6, I remember that day. My mom had heard the news on the radio, and came back down to my school in Ilford that morning to collect me. She was crying her eyes out. My parents were frantic. We had a phone, but could not get through. The next day we went next door, as they had TV. They listed off the children who where dead or missing. We found out that my mom's sister's girls were both ok, but my cousin, whom I had been playing football with only six weeks before, was one of the dead.
Margaret Davies, London
I was a 15 year old schoolgirl studying for my O levels the following summer living in Port Talbot and went home for lunch. I heard the news on the radio. At first I thought they said Aberafan and wondered what they were talking about. I returned to school to find the whole school eerily silent and disturbing. The news on television that night was very upsetting and I remember my father not wanting us to watch. To this day I still remember the feelings.
John Cotton of Leeds
Just had a chance to visit. Remember it vividly from when I saw it televised when it happened. It was a day similar weather wise when I came to visit. Misty, drizzle, unattractive. I cried without shame as I looked at the graves, with relatives names now. What a disaster and a waste of life. I hope humanity has learnt from this, but I doubt it. God bless the children and the families and friends that had to deal with their loss and still continue with life, such as it was. I cannot imagine what it must have been like. With my respects and condolences.
Angela Ebert (nee Jones), Purley Surrey
I am from Merthyr and at the time I was three years old when the Aberfan disaster struck. I can vividly remeber watching my mother walking from the front door after taking my brother and sister to school and seeing her either just finished crying or starting to cry after listening to the radio. Even at three years old it seems strange that I can still have this clear memory of that day and thinking how sad my mother looked. I know I felt puzzled by what was happening. Years later in the seventies I would often go to the Aberfan swimming pool on a Saturday and can recollect my mother asking me not to go. She must have been very frightened for me.
Philip, Wigan
I was in the third form (Year 9) at Neath Grammar School, when our English teacher Mr Ellis Jenkins came into the classroom after break in the morning. "There has been a terrible accident just over the valley near Merthyr" he said, "a tip has fallen onto a school and many people have been hurt" he went on. The next two or three weeks were some of the most traumatic weeks of my early life - television pictures of the rescue attempts, radio bulletins of the progress, financial campaigns to support the families. The following weeks made me then and still very very proud to be living in South Wales at the time where the instant community mobilisation, involving Miners, Emergency Services, Volunteers etc was second to none. Some years later I was going out with a girl whose father had been a Station Officer based at Porth Fire Station. The experiences he related to me, of the disaster and its aftermath, were some of the most moving and most upsetting conversations I have had in my life. He said that the initial rescue, when the slurry was wet, recovered whole bodies but in the weeks that followed the slurry dried out and it became more and more difficult to recover whole bodies. He related that in all his years as a Fire Officer, attending road accidents, house fires and the like, these were the most traumatic weeks he had spent, even having survived the War in Europe. In my recollection of October 21 1966, I do remember that we had a week of torrential rain, similar to the end of June early July 2007, but also the overwhelming community support which was in evidence on the day and for weeks and years since. I have been a Geography teacher since 1980 so as you will imagine when studying Natural Disasters I relate with passion the events of that day.
Connor, London
I am 15 and I was doing Aberfan for my GCSE drama and I feel so upset that all those people died. Could there have been anything they could have done to stop it from happening?
Dave Humphreys, Ebbw Vale
I was 12 years old and eagerly awaiting our school bus which would take me from Mount Pleasant via Merthyr Vale to Pantglas Senior School for the last day before our half term holidays. The bus was late because of the thick morning fog. It crossed my mind that perhaps the bus might not bother turning up, it being the last day, but no such luck - here it came. The uneasy thought crossed my mind that we would arrive in the middle of morning assembly, disrupting it and I remember thinking "bloody fog". The journey was short and sweet and we sang songs as the realisation dawned that in a few hours we would be free to do more important things like collecting trees and tyres for bonfire night! We reached our stop and as we started to get off the bus opposite the Mackintosh Hotel, Aberfan, a disheveled lady came running down the hill shouting that the mountain had "gone into the school". I still feel deep shame that I along with others cheered believing that we would have an extra day's holiday. Then we saw the black slurry hurrying down the hill and the nightmare began. Even now it's difficult to believe that had our bus been on time we may have been engulfed by the black tide that took away friends and relatives. After all these years I still have a deep feeling of foreboding when October approaches and in my mind's eye visions of lost friends who will never age, are remembered.
Cllr Dr Howard Bloom from Charlwood Surrey
I was aged 13 years and off school that day. My mother was the Divisional Director of Merthyr Branch of the British Red Cross Society and she was called down to Aberfan and she and other volunteers from the Red Cross set up the mortuary. My father was duty Consultant Surgeon at St Tydfil's Hospital and operated on the few survivors of the disaster that required surgical treatment. I spent the day taking and passing on phone messages from volunteers. The event had a long term affect on my mother's health which is not surprising due to the events she witnessed at the scene.
Brian Jordan from Stockport
My father who died in 2004 was part of the rescue team. My brother and I never knew about it, we only found out from papers and photos we found amongst his things after his death. It shows what an effect the disaster had on him that he could not bring himself to talk about it to his sons even 10, 20 or 30 years after.
Colin Quinlan, Reading
I was just six at the time of the disaster, and remember the subdued atmosphere in the road that i lived in. That Saturday and Sunday, the road was silent and deserted. Nobody came out and none of us children played outside. Evereybody seemed to be in shock. 40 years later, I finally visited Aberfan to pay my respects. The visit to the memorial garden was very moving, it was as quiet as that Saturday and Sunday I remembered 40 years previous, so difficult to imagine what once happened there. Seeing it on television all those years ago was upsetting, those children, we were all a similar age, so sad, but now at peace.
Jan Masters, Curry Rivel, Somerset
I was 23 years old when the disaster struck and on Good Friday 2007 I visited Aberfan. I visited the graves and the garden of remembrance where the school stood. Children were playing in the playground next to where the school had stood, and two little girls and one boy of about 8 or 9 ran into the garden playing hide and seek. I think this was a very poignant and emotional moment and I congratulate the Aberfan people on the beautiful and sensitive way that the memorials have been made. A young boy asked if we needed help and the sun shone so brightly on our visit. May God rest those little souls and the living parents and people of Aberfan.
Jade Rigby from Boston, Lincolnshire
I'm doing a project at school on Carrie's War by Nina Baldwin and need a Welsh village to locate it in. Whilst researching I found out about Aberfan. I'm very sorry for all that were lost.
Allison from Cardiff
I was only a year old in 1966, but my mum told me about Aberfan when I was older. I have visited the town with my own son and we have spent quiet minutes by the garden of rememberance. My son said those children are very special angels and I agree. God bless them and their families.
Niki Morris, South Africa
Although this terrible disaster happened before I was born it will always be close to my heart. Having grown up in Merthyr, Pontypridd, Llantwit Fardre and Tredegar, all these places are my home with many memories of my late mother and father.
Muna Hersi from Cardiff
I was doing research on the disaster - I'm 12 years old but I still feel as if I were there. I'm so sorry - this and Titanic are the most tragic days of all.
Nicole Doke from Coleford, Gloucestershire
I have just returned from a visit today to Aberfan village and cemetery. My heart goes out to all those that lost their loved ones - you can almost feel those children reaching out. Nothing can make you feel anything but love for all the people of Aberfan. God bless all of them. We won't forget, nor should we forget.
Georgina Yorath (nee Price), Abercynon
My mother was a cleaner at the school and was at work cleaning the school from 7 on that fateful morning. My mother and the other cleaner, a Mrs Bendle from Aberfan, were supposed to go and see the headmistress Miss Jennings about loose tiles in the cloakroom. But because I was home ill with tonsilitis from my school in Merthyr Vale they didn't go to see the headmistress - they thought they would leave it until later in the day. My mam got home and collected me from a friend's house (because my father had died the previous year) and as we were leaving to go to our house and take in the ashbin my cousin Terry came running down the street shouting "Auntie Bessie, the tip has fallen on your school". With that my mother took my hand and we ran to the top of Crescent Street, and my mother flagged down the first car and told them to take us to Aberfan where I was to witness the most horrific scenes in my life - children being brought past me wrapped in blankets and my mother digging in the dirt with her bare hands because she knew and loved all the children in that school. I go up the cemetery often as my mam and dad are buried just below the children's graves. No one will ever be able to forget the children.
Allan Howells, Stafford
I was born in Merthyr Vale and stayed ther until I was 27.
I had a butchers round with Stones in Cotterill street and used to deliver all over Aberfan. On the day I was in Quakers Yard Grammar school in Edwardsville. We initially heard rumours that the tip had slid which happened now and then. Later the headmaster called all the pupils who lived in Aberfan into the school hall and told them what had happened and that they should go home. We heard pit hooters and watched lorry loads of miners travelling up the valley to help. One of them was my father Jack who worked in Taff Merthyr. He spent days digging at the school. Lots of people came from all over Britain carrying spades to help but they were more of a hindrance to the miners. For months afterwards the roads were black with mud. A sorrowful day indeed.
John Williams, Carmel
I had just finished my 12 weeks training at Curt y Colle, Crickhowell on this black day. Two platoons of young men - trainee soldiers - were sent to assist with the rescue operation. We got there late afternoon. By this time in the afternoon the life expectancy was zero and it was all we cold do to sort out what was left of the buildings and exhume bodies. 40 years have gone by since that tragic day, but every year that went by was a sad memory in my mind, as I went on with my life. I always knew that I had to go back before my life was through as it had left its mark on my youth. I have just returned from the journey and I feel the pain in m heart of sorrow which I felt all those years ago. Though the village is now green and tranquil and full of autumnal colours, the black as I remember is all gone. The sorrow lingers on. I extend my condolences to all families, and hope for a much brigter future. Fus.Will.40
Faith Emmingham, Sheffield
I have been doing a report on this disaster and I have found it hard to believe that so many young lives have been lost. My thoughts are with all of them and the people who have lost loved ones. God bless xx
John Williams, Caernarfon
I had not been to Aberfan in 40 years before the remembrance service. I was 18, fresh from my first army training and that black day was to be our first real manoeuvre with the army. None of us were really prepared for what we saw or encountered on that day. As I stood remembering the lives of those lost in the graveyard in Aberfan I looked up. A motorway now runs where the coal slip once stood. I could not help thinking that man makes his own self-destruction and it's the innocents that suffer. That first manoeuvre will stay with me and my colleagues every day of our lives. I would like to pay my regards to each and evey one of the families who lost a loved on on that day, for their bravery and their true Welsh spirit.
Vin Wigmore, Scunthorpe - born in Newport
The morning of the disaster I was at home from work with earache and heard on the radio about the disaster. My aunty was a cleaner at Pantglas Junior and Infants School (from 1940s to 1970s) and I had another aunty and uncle and their family living in Aberfan, We eventually heard that they were safe. I had spent times in the school with my aunty so knew it well. Forty years have passed since that terrible day - I would like to pay my respects to the people of Aberfan those I don't know and those that I do know. Aberfan will always have a special place in my heart because that was where my mum was born. I still visit when I can to visit my cousin and her family.
Tony Ansett, Lara, Victoria, Australia
My family was Phelps and Phillips from there and my kids now go to Lara Lake Primary School. Spooky though that the Lara School gave donations after the disaster and then the Lara School burnt down 1969 and the Aberfan school returned the favour. My kids have the Welsh Dragon on their jumper and their colours are red and green. When I first sent them to school I didn't know my family history. What a small world.
Phil Sheath, Portsmouth
Aberfan has always been close to my heart. I was 7 when the disaster happened - my 2 sisters and I were allowed to stay up and watch the news. It had a profound effect on us - my dad always promised me he would take me there one day. He didn't, but I went there myself 15 years ago to pay my respects. I vowed never to break a promise to my 2 children and I never will. God bless you all. You will never be forgotten.
Mike Allcroft
My heart goes out to all the parents in the Aberfan disaster. This will and should never be forgotten - RIP all you little angels. Thoughts go out to Elaine and the late Emlyn Richards and Angela - they lost an angel, RIP Sylvia xxxxx
Lynne Jones, Wembley Park, London
Is there any way of finding out about the survivors? My friend and his brother raised money to sponsor a boy their age (9-11) from Wembley Park Lane School in 1966. With the 40th Anniversary covered in our local paper they are wondering how to get in touch with the appropriate people who might have records. The boy they sponsored was called Andrew. They were sent a photo and often think of him.
Vanessa ,Troedyrhiw
I lived in the next village to Aberfan - I was 7 at the time in Troedyrhiw Junior School. We had just finished assembly, we heard this rumble and the teachers just telling us to go to the classroom. The next thing our mothers were standing at the school gates crying. My mother held me so tightly - when she told me what had happened, I wanted to hold her tightly. My father was an ex coal miner - I didn't see him for 3 days. He came back a broken man - I had never seen my father cry before.
Tony from Aberfan (now London)
I returned to Aberfan this year for the 40th anniversary - the first time I had been "home" for 35 years. I was 11 years old when the disaster changed all our lives and took away so many young friends. I went with trepidation but I left with joy, hope and confidence because Aberfan is a very different place now. It is green again now that the colliery has gone - the hillsides are beautiful, smothered with fir trees, ferns and heather. I was met by so many smiling faces who remembered me from all those years ago. I came away knowing that it was Aberfan's love for its own community that has given them the strength to rebuild their lives again. I had so many sad memories of Aberfan - now they have been replaced with happy memories.
Susan from Wales
I was in hospital when it happened. I was just a little girl. I remember sitting in the day-room hardly believing the horrible scenes on the television. The room was filled with patients and staff, but no one said a word. In the evening my mum and dad came to see me. I could tell my mum had been crying. They had brought me an Enid Blyton adventure book to read, but after they had gone I couldn't open it. I just lay there thinking about all those children who were gone ... children who probably loved to read those same books. I felt terrbily, terribly sad.
John Price, Manchester
On the day of the Aberfan Disaster I was on my first Goelogy field trip with school. It was only when I arrived home that I heard the news of the Disaster. The thought struck how transient was life surely there must be more than the life we have on earth. This eventually lead me to my faith and belief in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Tania Stephens
My mum and dad would have been having their 40th wedding anniversary on 22nd October 2006. They married on the Saturday after the disaster - they had made the decision to cancel but was urged on by families that had lost loved ones. David, a little boy who died, was going to play the organ, and my mum's best friend had lost her mum and dad. Ruby, David's mum, begged them to go and get married. They did up at Merthyr Registry Office and immediately returned to share their wedding reception food with the workers rescuing the trapped children and adults. My mum has no photographs of her wedding not even good happy memories, just the sad day she said "I do".
Rosemary Webb
My thoughts and prayers are with you today as you remember the loss of your loved ones.
Keith, England
I was 15 when this disaster happened and rooted to the TV like millions of others. I said how could something like this happen, how could they have put a slag heap that close to houses and a school. I have read a report this morning that some of the fund set up for the survivers was used to clean up the disaster and not repayed by the Government until 1997. Shame on them, and the coal board which tried to blame the weather. Well all I can say is they should hang their heads in shame. God bless to you all, my thoughts are with you.
Francis Haines, born in Aberfan
I was going on 6 when this disaster happend and was lucky enough not to have been in that school. But this was not so for my 8 year old sister who died but will always be remembered.
Chris Jones, Dowlais, Merthyr Tydfil
I drove home from work today, Pontypool to Dowlais, across the mountain from Blaenavon to Brynmawr. The bubbling black/grey clouds and intermittent rain brought back vivid memories of 1966 and Aberfan. I can still recall that day and walking home from St Illtyds RC School, Dowlais, and wondering how the mountain had fallen on Pantglas; that's what our teachers had told us. I was 9 years old at the time and as I walked home that day I glanced back at my own school to assess the chances of upper Dowlais falling on St Illtyds. My home was sad for months. My dad was a serving police officer, spending several shifts in the chapel/mortuary in the village, my uncle Vic the police sergeant pictured carrying the little one from the ruins, and a close neighbour was Mr Beynon, a teacher at the school. So the disaster has never been far from my mind. In 2001 I lost my own son, killed in a road traffic accident outside his own school, just 15 years of age, so I have some idea of the pain and suffering endured by these incredible people. My best wishes always to the people of Aberfan. Their strength and humility is a lesson to us all.
Juila Knowles, Eastcote
I was five at the time of the Aberfan disaster. Thoughts and feelings still haunt me today. I remember my mother telling us that a hundred children had died at their school and that there were girls and boys like us who would never see their brothers and sisters again. We packed special toys and chocolate to send to Aberfan. I remember wondering how that would help but a neighbour told me that giving things we loved would comfort those so hurt. For a long time I was afraid to go to school ... I'd heard that some children had survived by hiding under their desks. I thought about them every day. Today the images and memories still make me cry but I pray for all the people of Aberfan. We will never forget what happened that day.
Ian Lawrence from Nottingham
I was a 16 year old schoolboy at the time of the tragedy, living in a small village called Taffs Well and attending Pontypridd Boys Grammar School. I believe that some of the pupils who lived close enough to the school to go home for lunch brought some news of what had happened, although the information was very sketchy. I also seem to remember that my Dad offered for he and I to help with the search for survivors, but although the search team were grateful for the offer they explained that there were almost too many volunteers for the size of the search area. My thoughts go out to all the people so affected by this dreadful tragedy.
Leighton Davies, Cwmparc, Rhondda
It was a day I'll never forget. I was in the first year 6th Form in Porth Grammar School; it was the last day before the half-term. Our headmaster made an announcement about the disaster during mid-morning break. When he said that a coal tip had slid I was able to visualise what had happened. Two years previously, in September 1964, a coal tip had slid from the mountain in my home village all over a local beauty spot known as the "Fishing River". That was after a day of heavy rain. The day before the rain fell - two days before the slip - I had been playing in the river with my brothers, aged then 15 and 6. If we had been at that same spot when the tip slid we would have been buried in about 20 feet of slurry. That tip in Cwmparc, just like the tips in Aberfan, had been laid on a natural mountain stream. When the NCB and Labour attempted to avoid and shirk responsibility for what had happened at Aberfan my father (a miner) and my mother never voted for the Labour Party again, and neither have I or my brothers ever since. The dead in Aberfan were victims of corporate manslaughter, and the brave people of Aberfan were robbed not only of a generation of life but also of basic justice. The £150,000 tokenly paid back in 1997 was paltry and meaningless: the payment should have been inclusive of accrued interest, making £1.5 million: probably as much as this bloody government spends per minute on its so-called "wars" in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Howard Turvey from Llantwit Fardre
I was a 13 year old school boy attending Whitchurch school, when we were told of the disaster. I was standing outside the art classroom with a group of classmates waiting to enter the room. We were silent, unable to fully understand what had happened. That evening as we watched the news the full extent of the disaster became all too clear, and you became part of it. My father Arthur Turvey was in the Civil Defence at the time, and he spent many long hours at Aberfan, helping as one could. At the end of the 60's a work friend, who lived in Aberfan, told me that he had found his cousin within the school - he hadn't survived the disaster. We both had tears running down our cheeks. We will never forget what happened on that day. God bless you all.
Alyson Dale, Ebbw Vale
I remember the day of the Aberfan Disaster, I was five years old, enjoying my first few weeks in Waunlwyd School. Just before lunch we were told that lunch was going to be served early and that we were going to be sent home from school early. We were told that a coal tip had slipped on a school over the valley. I got home to find the men from my street gathering shovels, they were going to Aberfan to help dig out the children. We watched the television and the full extent of this disaster became known. I lived in fear of going to school for months afterwards because our own school was on top of a hill with a mountain behind it. I used to think that the mountain was going to come into our school. Now 40 years on those memories still haunt me. I will never forgot those children and adults that perished for as long as I live. The Government should reimburse the Aberfan community the money they had to pay towards the removal of the tips. This shouldn't be the original amount that was repaid in 1997 - the community should be reimbursed at today's value. Never again would the parents and the community have to worry about the upkeep of the cemetery. I am thinking of you all today on the 40th anniversary of this disaster.
Mary French (nee Lynch), San Francisco
I was ten years old at the time and in school in Hayling Island, Hants. The nuns gathered us together for general assembly and told us about the awful news. The full impact of the disaster didn't really register then although we were aware that many children had died in Wales that day. The reason that day stuck in my mind though was because the nuns wanted to light some candles in memory of the children. No one could find the matches to light the candles and I was singled out as being responsible for stealing the box of matches. A few weeks before I had taken some matches and started a small bonfire near a workman's shed and part of the shed had caught fire. I got in to a lot of trouble for that episode and now when matches were needed to light candles for the children, they could not be found. I never took them, but as the years have moved on the memories of that awful tragedy have stayed with me, along with my personal memories of being accused of stealing.
Andrew Miles, Maidstone, Kent
I listened to the disaster on the radio as we did not have TV at this time. I could hear the stories about survivors being dug out from the mud, and when they eventually said how many had perished I cried for a long time.
These children were my age/generation and they would all be approaching 50 now, with children of their own. Time does not heal disasters like this.
Mark Shickle, Ealing, London
I was six years old on that day. I attended a school in a mining valley not far away from Aberfan. I remember my mother collecting me from school in tears. She took me home and she cried all night. There was a tip behind our home. Every time it rained I remember the worry on her face.
Ian Smith, Stokenchurch
I was six at the time of the disaster and I remember our school having a collection for the disaster fund. Years later I read 'Struggling out of the Darkness' by Gaynor Madgewick, about the disaster, and promised myself that one day I would go to Aberfan. I kept that promise on Saturday 21st 2006. I visited the memorial garden and the cemetry, and will never forget a lost generation. I also had the privilige to meet one of the survivors.
David Lloyd, London
Aberfan is carved on my memory as a Cardiff school boy being told in a geography lesson that a tip had fallen on a school. 40 years later the impact of that event is as strong as ever. I have lived in London for many years but the images of that tragedy brings back so many memories of a Cardiff boyhood and a lost generation of valleys kids. It was part of my growing up.
Richard Blackburn, Barwell, Leicestershire
I was 18 at the time and I well remember the dreadful scenes as the rescue efforts were shown on television. In 2005 I went to Aberfan to see for myself where it all happened. I visited the cemetery where the children are buried. And I cried, I cried like a baby for those lost innocents.
Paula Foreman, Crawley, West Sussex
I would like to let all the people of Aberfan know that they are in my thoughts, and always have been as I clearly remember that day. I was 10 years old and it has always stayed with me because I saw those children as one of my generation, which saddened me.
Lynne Needham, Lincolnshire
My mother was born at number 10 Pantglas, Aberfan and attended Pantglas school in the early 20's. I remember the day well. I was working on a farm in Nottinghamshire and was told by the herdsman that the tip had buried the school. He gave me permission to go home early so I was able to warn my parents. We all sat down and watched the 6 oclock news. Having seen the report we were sitting there in a state of shock when the phone rang. It was a friend from the Welsh society in Harlow telling us that the tip had missed No 10 and passing on news of survivors. The phone never stopped ringing. People were passing on messages just in case any relatives should contact us. I remember we had a pad by the phone to take down the details. The phone calls came from all over the country. Some were from people that my mother hadn't seen or heard from in years.
Stephen Parry, Machen
We were sent home from school and got told that something had happened up the valley, but we didn't really know what. I remember someone saying that a coal tip had slid into a graveyard, and that there were bodies in the slurry.
Then when I got home, Mam was watching the TV. This was unusual because TV was only on after all the work was done. And she hadn’t made tea! This was even more of a shock. But we sat down and watch the horror of what had happened unfold. But the main thing I remember from those days was silence. For days afterwards people stood in groups, talking quietly; no one shouted and no child played. And in Trethomas and Machen people just stood and watched the tips above us. Not much notice had been taken of them till then. You watched the journeys going up to Machen if you had nothing better to do, but for the rest they were just there. But now they loomed large in everyone's mind, because we realised that if they moved then nothing would save either village.
Dyfed Thomas, Loughor, Swansea
On this fateful day I was hitchiking home from UWIST, Cardiff when I boarded a bus at the Angel Hotel to take me to Western Avenue so that I could start hitching. On the bus I heard 2 women talking about an "incident" involving a school in the Valleys. I got a lift & listened to the car radio where I heard all about our worst fears. It was awful & I can't comprehend how the people there felt at the time & over the years. I rarely cry but I have shed my share of tears over the years not only because of the worst tragedy imaginable but also because of the way honest, suffering people of Aberfan were betrayed by the vacuous, obscene treatment by the then Labour govt.
They were virtually left to get on with it & then came the unkindest cut of all ... Give us £250,000(rounded down to £150,000) from your fund to remove the tips!! That was BRUTAL, OBSCENE & an epitaph of that shameful Labour cabal of whom George Thomas was a member. The less said about Robens the better! I didn't vote Labour for years as I felt ashamed & so sorry for the families who had lost so much. God give you strength to carry on. I'll never forget that awful, chilling day until I die.
David Luck, Llanvaches
I was just 4 years old a month before Aberfan, and living in Hampshire with my mum as my dad was away at sea. The only thing I can really remember before it 100% was getting the book Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne for my birthday. I still clearly remember Robert Dougal coming on the news on TV to announce what had happened, my mum crying and the pictures of the men on top of the slurry pile on the school digging with their bare hands. I remember praying for the children and their families that night on the hearth rug in front of the gas fire with my mum and giving a teddy bear for the children who survived. The name Aberfan has stuck in my consciousness ever since. 40 years on I now find myself living and working in Wales, with young children of my own and although can never understand the pain and sorrow that dreadful day inflicted,I have a bit better idea of what it meant. Very soon I will travel to Aberfan to properly pay my respects.
Susan Moss, London
I was 19 when Aberfan happened and can still remember the dreadful sadness I felt. It was also the first time I saw a newsreader weep. To try and have better memories of this day in 1978 I chose this day to marry and thankfully I now also have happy memories.
Jeff Williams, Repton
I can remember I had not long started in the lower 6th form at Ogmore Grammar School in a mining valley to the west of Merthyr. I along with others was in the form room when a friend who went home for lunch had returned and said that there had been a landslip at a school at Aberfan. Details at that time were unavailable and it was not until evening when the full impact of what had happened became known. I also remember my father who worked at the Penllwyngwent colliery at the time and was also a part time fireman being on standby to aid in the recovery operation, although he didn't go. It was one of the saddest events I can ever remember, and one I will never forget.
Keith Thomas Lewis
I lived in Caerphilly at the time of the disaster. I was sitting with my class mates at the Grammar School and the teacher came in to tell us the breaking news and that out of respect we were being sent home....he cried. I shall never forget his compassion.
Steve Ball, Longton, Stoke-on-trent.
I was 10 years old at the time of the disaster. I can still remember watching it all on black and white TV. Something like that never leaves your memory. I just want the people to know that we have not forgotten them. In fact never a month goes by when I don't think about Aberfan. Especially this time of the year when its on tv again. In fact as I get older the more I think about the disaster every October. Especially as I now have children of my own. Long may the people be remembered, as we shed more tears. RIP
Hilary Williams, Brecon
I was a child of 12 at the time and living in the Upper Swansea Valley. My father was a disabled coal miner and my mother was the local co-ordinator for WRVS and Civil Defence and she got a message to raise a group of female volunteers to go to help with food and fresh clothing distribution for the workers involved in the rescue. She was away for a few days at Aberfan and I remember watching the reports of the disaster coming in on the media and I kept all the newspaper cuttings from the Daily Mirror. I also remember her stories of the horror and her distress, when she returned. Aberfan has always had a profound effect on me and the enormity of the tragedy even now reduces me to tears for the loss of so many lives, especially the children, as well as anger for the insensitivity of the Government and the Coal Board of that time. I visited the graveyard at Aberfan, with my husband, whilst pregnant, in 1990 and words cannot describe the heartbreak I felt whilst walking between the lines of memorial stones on that hillside. I doubt whether any other disaster will have such an effect on me, as Aberfan! Each year, I remember the tragedy of Aberfan and this year will be no different.
Mike Davies from Crewkerne
My grandparents lived in Aberfan and the Saturday before the disaster I had enjoyed my 6th birthay there. We used to walk up to the canal bank past the sweet shop and under the old bridge. I remember looking down into the playground and school, it was similar to mine in Cardiff.
When the news came Dad went to help. Weeks later I recall the sadness and odd things like the smoke coming up from the black mucky field where the school and houses had been. Mounds of black slurry on the street corners and sandbags outside of front doors. I couldn't really understand the loss. My cousin was in the infants and escaped unharmed. Grandad was very quite and thoughtful.He had taught a lad who lived near by how to ride his bike recently,he was gone now. When we visited the cemetery I still couldn't grasp the sadness and remember being told not to run around and laugh. I understand now...
Steve Lawson, Coventry
I don't think there was a parent in the land that didn't weep that day. Locals trying to dig the little mites out with their bare hands. It still makes me cry 40 years later and we'll never forget them. The strength these families have had to muster is beyond belief. We were all so powerless to help this community and that still hurts.
John, Carmarthen
I remember the day vividly as 'I was there' and up until today I have managed to bury that part of my memory very sucessfully. But today, maybe because it has been on the news a lot, I was waiting at a traffic light in Carmarthen when I heard a story on Radio Wales about Raymond Collins, his brother and mum. All were killed by that tip. The radio story was really about his dad, who went to work as normal only to come home to nothing, no house, no wife and no children. Where does a man go after that? Well I don't know, but I heard today that he also died young, probably died of a broken heart, grief or just pure rage. I have pent up pure rage for the Government of the time not for the disaster, because that was inevitable, but for the way they treated the people of Aberfan, Merthyr Vale and Mount Pleasant the years immediately after the disaster. They lied, connived, cheated and I suspect much worse, and to top it all they made the people of Aberfan and communities pay to have the tip removed out of the money so generously donated from all over the world. Never has there been a proper appology, contrite murmurs in the news occasionally, but that is about all it come to. I am wondering if I should return there this week, but will it re kinder bad memories for the next forty years, or will allow me to put 'my' ghosts to sleep. I will probably never know unless I go there for myself.
Judith Evans from Penarth
I was living in Bordon Hants at the time my youngest son was just a few weeks old. My neighbour came round to tell me there was a disaster at school in Wales but she didn't say what or where I rushed to the radio a bit fearful as my mother was teaching at the time. Growing up in the valleys I was like many people familiar with those tips but I don't think many of us imagined that one of them would inflict the awful horror that happened in Aberfan. It was an incredibly sad time, seeing it on black and white television heightened the tragedy.
Betty and George Thompson, New Zealand
When visiting Wales in 1971 we both viewed the disaster aftermath. Betty had relatives in thr near area. We both found it very difficult to hold back a tear. The whole
pattern of the disaster was evident in the valleys of the coal mining slag heaps that remained at that time. We are happy to see that the removal of these heaps has now
been undertaken. Wales is such a beautiful part of the United Kingdom.
Susan Powers from Yorkshire
I was 13 at the time it happened. My family are Welsh so we felt it terribly. I passed Aberfan on the new road last summer and the disaster was brought into my mind so I looked for information on the internet and found it's 40 years this month since it happened. I'll never forget that day and would like survivors to know that people think of them still.
Eliza Bagley, Adelaide, South Australia
I was 17 and at High School in Dudley (then Worcestershire) when the Aberfan tragedy happened. At this distance of time and space, I have no clear memory my own reaction to the events, although I was obviouly deeply affected. I migrated to Australia in 1971 and the Aberfan disaster might never have happened for all the publicity it seems to receive here. Partly for this reason, I have rarely thought about the events of October 21st, 1966. In the last few months, I have found myself thinking more often about the disaster and have now marked the date on my personal almanac. I do not know why I am so conscious of it now, but I feel increasingly distressed as the the 40th anniversary nears. I am beginning to feel that the dead children of Aberfan are weeping and calling out to us, wanting us to remember them, fearing that we are forgetting them as we concentrate on the victims of new tragedies. Now that I have taken the trouble to check and have found the BBC Wales Calendar of events for this 40th anniversary, I will get my skates off and speak to people here to see what coverage is planned or can be arranged.
Liz Colayera, Cardiff
Just wanted to mention my late father, Alun Talfan Davies, who was Recorder of Merthyr Tydfil at the time of the Aberfan disaster. He worked tirelessly for years trying to help the people of Aberfan, aiding the Aberfan Disaster Fund and remained in contact with the people until his early 80s. I remember quite well that he would always make an effort to attend the annual Christmas performance of the Ynysowen MVC usually in the company of my late mother Lyn. My uncle, the late Cyril Moseley, should also be mentioned - he was one of the main solicitors helping to aid the victims and their families. I was only ten at the time, but I remember it quite vividly watching the events unfold in black and white on TV. A truly horrific day. May they all rest in peace.
Helen, Rockingham, Western Australia
I remember being 12 at the time. My friends and I decided we would collect some money for the disaster - we walked around the streets and just asked people for money and they gave it. I can't recall how much we got, I don't think it was very much, but my Mum sent it off to the appropriate place. A few weeks later we got a letter inviting us to the Mayor's chambers and we got a personal thank you and a tour of the building, how excited we were. I don't think you ever get over something like that disaster, especially when you about the same age as the children who died that day. I can only imagine the horror now being a mother and grandmother.
Peter Davies, Chepstow
I was 14 at the time and recall going home for lunch (from school in Bridgend) and being told vague details about the tragedy by my mother. I returned to school and told my maths teacher who seemed uninterested and dismissive. Little did we know the scale of what was to emerge. I saw the BBC program in September 2006 and seemed to recall it was a sunny day in Bridgend. A tragedy followed by terrific injustices that have yet to be righted.
Pat Hughes from Tonteg
I can remember that day as if it was yesterday. We were living in Wallasey at the time and had just come home from a holiday in Penarth at my cousin's. I heard the news over the radio and the did nothing else that day but watch the TV and weep. About three years ago, my daughter took me and the grandchildren to Aberfan to pay our respects in the cemetary. While there we met the sister of one of the lost children, whose 40th birthday it would have been that day. It was so terribly sad - she talked to us, and it really brought it home to us.
Bill Hoskins in Australia
My wife and I went to the cemetery at Aberfan. It was a heartbreaking visit. I lived over the mountain at Ynysboeth. I recall my dear old dad saying that it was going to happen long before it did. I have the newspaper accounts here in Australia. I will relive it again now. God is looking after them all now.
Andrew Hovord, Cardiff
My partner's grandmother went to Aberfan 20 years ago and said you couldn't see any 30 year olds in the town.
Margaret Willoughby, Pontypridd
I remember the day well. I was at work and heard the news on the radio. One of my workmates had a son at Pantglas Secondary Modern (the senior school) and I had a brother there. She promptly fainted and when she came round someone took us down to Aberfan. The sight that greeted us was awesome, beyond description. Her son and my brother survived.
Alan from Pyle
I can remember that day well as my Nan, now deceased, burst in to my home with tears in her eyes to tell me what had happened, and vivid memories of people digging in the slurry with their bare hands - a really tragic day for all.
Share your memories of the Aberfan disaster
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