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I'm sure it's been big news over there this week but I hadn't realised until I just saw it on the BBC website that it's 50 years since the Aberfan disaster. I'm sure anyone who was alive at the time remembers it vividly, I do. Having had a similar incident close by us here in the US a couple of years ago killing 44, it's hard to comprehend the tragedy at Aberfan killing 144, mostly children.
Let's not forget that being bottom of the Championship, whilst frustrating and annoying, it's not a disaster.
RIP
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-sou...wales-37689736
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Yes it was truly terrible, I was 15 at the time and it shook me then and shakes me now.
Hard to imagine a full school of kids going through a normal day when whoosh they all die.
Such was the closeness of the community you had dads digging in the coal spoil trying to find their own kids.
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it doesn't seem like 50 yrs, yes I still get upset seeing it and can't imagine how their families feel
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Lots on the News here CAM with several documentaries that bring tears to my eyes remembering such a disaster like it was yesterday.
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I was a bit younger Grist (6) but to demonstrate the enormity it all, it happened just 3 months after we won the World Cup of which I have no recollection whereas the events of Aberfan are burned into my memory.Originally Posted by Grist_To_The_Mill
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Wise words in the opening post, CAM. I was 10 years old at the time, and still remember watching the tv news reports.
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I too was 6 but don't remember anything of this or my mum kept me from seeing it….being a child myself it probably passed me by but I have read the story and seen the news reels time and again as I grew…
I watched a programme on it last week and had to explain to my 21 year old daughter just what happened….she was very quiet and still as she watched it all unfold…
We both discussed just how painful it must have felt for all those poor parents and of the other adults that died….the teacher who was found covering four children as he perished with them...what struck me and still does every time I come across this painful disaster is how all those Fathers came out of the pit attempting to dig their own children out of the school…my heart is aching as I type…it must have been a truly harrowing heart breaking situation I cannot fathom how I myself would have coped under those dreadful circumstances...
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I was 18, working in London, and vividly remember standing on the tube staring at a full front page photograph of the school and houses engulfed by the tip. Unimaginable horror. It shook me then and does every time I see film and photographs, especially today. What makes it worse, if that's possible, is thinking it could have happened any time, overnight, at the weekend, during school holidays - which were due to begin the next day - and that the NCB was warned of the possibility of a landslide but did nothing about it.
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I was a mere 7 months old, but being from a mining community and working down the pit it always resonates with me regarding the community effort made, and the sacrifices made in the rescue effort also, absolutely tragic and listening to one of the child survivors talking about the aftermath, where there was no one to play with, was quite emotional.
RIP...
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I was nearly 9 and I also remember it vividly. It certainly puts things into perspective.
All those young kids (many about my age) with their whole lives ahead of them tragically cut short.
I was too young to understand how it happened and don't wish to sour the thread talking about that side of it but I can't imagine how those poor families caught up in the events of that terrible day got through it.
It is hard to say more without being patronising but it makes you think about the fragility of life and how quickly things can change.
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