Buried Futures

Fifty-five years ago, a black tide swept away 109 young lives

Aerial photo showing the collapsed waste heap and path of the landslide (607776-public_domain-wikimeida_commons))

It was a quarter past nine on the morning of 21st October 1966, the staff and pupils of Pantglas Junior School in the village of Aberfan were just beginning the day. On the other side of the country, in Hull, my eight-year-old self was doing the same at Southcoates Lane Junior School. A long way away, but I doubt the rituals varied. Taking the register, collecting dinner money, getting ready to go out for Assembly before the first lesson of the day.

But in Aberfan, something different happened. It began with a low rumble -some said it was like thunder, others like the sound of a jet plane -that grew steadily louder. Then a black mass of water, slurry, mud and rubble crashed into, over and through the building before running through into neighbouring streets and finally stopping.

Then silence, a resident later said “In that silence, you couldn’t hear a bird or a child.”

Aberfan

In 1869, Aberfan was a couple of cottages and a pub used by farmers and bargemen, It lay toward the bottom of the Taff Valley, on the eastern slope of a hill called Mynydd Merthyr. Some four miles to the north was the then rapidly-growing town of Merthyr Tydfil.