RIP the children and teachers of Abefan

Rose wrote:

sceptical guy wrote:

The 50th anniversary of the disaster which buried 116 children and 28 teachers alive. I was a schoolboy at the time, and remember the shock in my family, and becoming aware of the full horror of what had happened. I won’t watch the programmes, just as I avoid Holocaust programmes. I can’t actually take it – too real. Shame on the NCB!!! God bless those who died, and those who survived.

I was 11 when this happened and started to watch the documentary on it the other night while I was with a 25 year old. Trying to explain the horror and the desperation the whole of the country felt for those poor people that had lost loved ones was exhausting. After half an hour she was so emotional I had to turn over, she will never forget it now and neither will I. I will watch the rest of it when I’m alone.

Rose, that’s a variant on what one of the surivivors said in the morning news yesterday.. She was 6 or 7, in primary school, when the tip fell on the school. She escaped through a hole in the roof, traumatised by the fate of some of her classmates. She said “I will never forget it, and I don’t want to forget it”.

An ex-paratrooper, 18 at the time, said he could not choose to walk away. he got to Aberfan quickly to help clear the coal. He was sayng that the experience confirmed his feelings about equality. It didn’t matter who you were, Welsh or whatever,  nor colour, everybody worked as one, united in a very close family. Very moving.

And cosy, it was the NCB which was aware and took the gamble that the tip wouldn’t move. Well, it would have cost money otherwise, wouldn’t it?