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100 Years Ago Today At 8:10 Am
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sengenydd mine disaster when 439 miners were killed
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A terrible day, and as you say tilly the true price of coal.I joined the mining industry in June '66 at a time when fatalities throughout the industry were virtually every day events.By the tme I finished after thirty years things were a lot different due to changes in attitudes,eqipment and working practices fatal accidents, while still happening, had become quite rare though I do remember '73 being a very bad year with seven men being lost to an inrush of water and slurry at the Lofthouse Colliery and eighteen dead and eleven seriously injured when the brakes of the winding engine failed at Markham Colliery.
Thats right Ellipsis, I remember it was a Friday and I was at the Tech' on my day release when the lecturer was called out off class.He returned about five minutes later with a transister radio and announced to the class that there had been a accident at a mining village in Wales.We all assumed it was at the pit and it was only when he managed to get the radio tuned in that we found out just what had happened and just how terrible it was. The principle of the Mining Department cancelled the rest of the days classes so we went to the pub for a pint while we waited for the bus the radio was on and as the scale of the accident became clearer the pub got quieter and quieter,till the only sound in the place was one of the barmaids crying.It's one of those days you never forget.
To remind us all Ellipsis ::::
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And the bl00dy Coal Board got off scot-free in the enquiry afterwards. In addition, the Miners Pension Fund was raided to the tune of £150,000 to remove the remaining tips at Aberfan ! This money was paid back by the Tony Blair to the Disaster Fund, and in 1997, a further £2 million was donated by the Welsh Assembly.
Sometimes Wales is portrayed as a bit "chippy" in their attitude to England. While not defending this attitude, its easy to see where it comes from.
Two years ago I was working in Aberfan and met a lady with a story to tell.
She was only 16 when the disaster happened, and she had left school and went to work in a sewing factory in nearby Merthyr Tydfil. When she arrived in work that morning, she and other girls from Aberfan were sent back home by the Manager, who told them that something dreadful had happened in Aberfan. He wasn't sure exactly what had happened but he advised them to go home ASAP. We must remember that few people had phones in those days, and there was no TV on during the daytime, so news didn't travel very fast.
She and the other girls caught a bus, which could only go some way back down the narrow valley road, so they all got out and walked the rest of the way. The weather that morning was bad, with a thick fog obscuring visibility down to a few yards. When she got back to the road where she lived, she was greeted by complete pandamonium....Police, and Fire engines everywhere.
She found her mother standing with all the other mothers not far from the school. To cut a long story short, it was later the following day that the body of her little 9 year old brother was found. She showed me a photo of him. It was a typical School photo from the sixties...black and white, with her brother in a home-knitted v-necked jumper. He had a side parting, just like all boys had at the time. I remember he had a cheeky smile.
This lady told me that it took her Mum years to try to recover from her loss. She also told me that for months after the event, her Mum hardly let her out of her sight, as she was the only child left. She didn't even allow her out to play in the streets.
Years later, not long before her Mum passed away, she asked her Mum why she hadn't let her out to play with her friends. It was then that her Mother told her that because so many families had lost all their kids in the disaster, she didn't want her neighbours looking out of the window and seeing her remaining child out playing, in case it made it worse for the neighbours.
If you go to Aberfan, you can walk up to the top of the Cemetery, where most of the children and adults killed in the disaster are buried. One some of the graves parents had put small ceramic photos of the deceased children. Siblings are buried together, in some cases 3 kids from the same family. When you along the three rows of immaculately kept graves, you begin to notice that the grandparents of the kids are buried there too, some of them very soon after the disaster itself, died of broken hearts it is said.
Now nearly 50 years later, the parents of the kids are now being interred in the same graves. Its a very hard man that can walk along those rows of graves with a dry eye.
All this was entirely avoidable. The local Council and the Miners Union had warned the local NCB of problems with the tip, but they were ignored.
http://
And the bl00dy Coal Board got off scot-free in the enquiry afterwards. In addition, the Miners Pension Fund was raided to the tune of £150,000 to remove the remaining tips at Aberfan ! This money was paid back by the Tony Blair to the Disaster Fund, and in 1997, a further £2 million was donated by the Welsh Assembly.
Sometimes Wales is portrayed as a bit "chippy" in their attitude to England. While not defending this attitude, its easy to see where it comes from.
Two years ago I was working in Aberfan and met a lady with a story to tell.
She was only 16 when the disaster happened, and she had left school and went to work in a sewing factory in nearby Merthyr Tydfil. When she arrived in work that morning, she and other girls from Aberfan were sent back home by the Manager, who told them that something dreadful had happened in Aberfan. He wasn't sure exactly what had happened but he advised them to go home ASAP. We must remember that few people had phones in those days, and there was no TV on during the daytime, so news didn't travel very fast.
She and the other girls caught a bus, which could only go some way back down the narrow valley road, so they all got out and walked the rest of the way. The weather that morning was bad, with a thick fog obscuring visibility down to a few yards. When she got back to the road where she lived, she was greeted by complete pandamonium....Police, and Fire engines everywhere.
She found her mother standing with all the other mothers not far from the school. To cut a long story short, it was later the following day that the body of her little 9 year old brother was found. She showed me a photo of him. It was a typical School photo from the sixties...black and white, with her brother in a home-knitted v-necked jumper. He had a side parting, just like all boys had at the time. I remember he had a cheeky smile.
This lady told me that it took her Mum years to try to recover from her loss. She also told me that for months after the event, her Mum hardly let her out of her sight, as she was the only child left. She didn't even allow her out to play in the streets.
Years later, not long before her Mum passed away, she asked her Mum why she hadn't let her out to play with her friends. It was then that her Mother told her that because so many families had lost all their kids in the disaster, she didn't want her neighbours looking out of the window and seeing her remaining child out playing, in case it made it worse for the neighbours.
If you go to Aberfan, you can walk up to the top of the Cemetery, where most of the children and adults killed in the disaster are buried. One some of the graves parents had put small ceramic photos of the deceased children. Siblings are buried together, in some cases 3 kids from the same family. When you along the three rows of immaculately kept graves, you begin to notice that the grandparents of the kids are buried there too, some of them very soon after the disaster itself, died of broken hearts it is said.
Now nearly 50 years later, the parents of the kids are now being interred in the same graves. Its a very hard man that can walk along those rows of graves with a dry eye.
All this was entirely avoidable. The local Council and the Miners Union had warned the local NCB of problems with the tip, but they were ignored.
The terrible conditions that the coal face workers had to endure was unthinkable.
1960 i had to go down to the coalface at Fryston Colliery to attend a worker who had collapsed with chest pains.
The drop alone in the cage scared the life out of me and the journey to the face was about 1 mile in distance. One couldn't hear one talk as the machinery was so loud (a Trepana) or something like that.
I had all the time in the world for the "old miners" but their sons were a different breed...arrogant, complaining and skiving (my generalisation)
1960 i had to go down to the coalface at Fryston Colliery to attend a worker who had collapsed with chest pains.
The drop alone in the cage scared the life out of me and the journey to the face was about 1 mile in distance. One couldn't hear one talk as the machinery was so loud (a Trepana) or something like that.
I had all the time in the world for the "old miners" but their sons were a different breed...arrogant, complaining and skiving (my generalisation)
Mikey4444 thank you for a very moving description of that awful event, I recall coming home from school and finding my Mother sitting on the settee listening to the radio, no rolling news in those days, we at school didn't even know about it.
You also touched upon something else, which also applied to me and others. Parents were afraid for their surviving children In the '40s, there was a notorious murder in the area of the NW where I lived and another girl was missing. My mother was frightened to let us go out, even when I was in my teens she was always anxious and I recall feeling humiliated when she met me from the last bus. Often the effect of events spreads more widely than we can imagine.
You also touched upon something else, which also applied to me and others. Parents were afraid for their surviving children In the '40s, there was a notorious murder in the area of the NW where I lived and another girl was missing. My mother was frightened to let us go out, even when I was in my teens she was always anxious and I recall feeling humiliated when she met me from the last bus. Often the effect of events spreads more widely than we can imagine.
Oh dear Sqad ! A very big generalisation surely ? 4 miners were killed about 3 miles away from where I live 2 years ago. Were they arrogant, complaining and skiving ?
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A telling fact from the Senghenydd disaster of 100 years ago today. The compensation paid out to all the miners families came to a grand total of £24, a small sum even in those days. But the mine owners were said to be more concerned with the horses lost, as these cost more to replace than the miners themselves.
Many men and boys were rescued from the Pit, relatively unharmed. The rescue went on for 3 weeks. Can you imagine waiting patiently at the Pit for 3 weeks, always hoping that your husband or son would be one of those who was rescued ?
I have found this on the 'net this morning :::
http://
Many men and boys were rescued from the Pit, relatively unharmed. The rescue went on for 3 weeks. Can you imagine waiting patiently at the Pit for 3 weeks, always hoping that your husband or son would be one of those who was rescued ?
I have found this on the 'net this morning :::
http://
What made the Aberfan disaster so bad for me and my mates was that most of the victims were just kids and even though we were sat in a pub listening to the news none of us were really that much older then the children who had lost there lives in fact we shouldn't have been in the pub at all as the eldest of us was only seventeen.In regards to compensation pay outs I've still got the letters my gran recieved after my granddad was killed by a fall of ground in 1937, one from the Colliery Manager expressing his and the Butterly Companies regrets and enclosing a check for £20 compensation and the other from the steward of the local Miners Welfare on behalf of the workforce expressing the same sentiments together with a check for £56-8s-0d collected in the club.
Things have moved on when it comes to compensation paddywak. The Appeal Fund for the 4 miners in the Swansea valley in 2011 raised £30,000 within 24 hours of being set up.
Your story of listening to the radio in the Pub is very moving paddy. Wherever there is mining in the world, the same events keep occurring. Mining is inherently a dangerous activity and I'm not sure that it can ever be made entirely safe.
Remember the Chilean miners a couple of years ago ? ..a happy ending to that story at least.
Your story of listening to the radio in the Pub is very moving paddy. Wherever there is mining in the world, the same events keep occurring. Mining is inherently a dangerous activity and I'm not sure that it can ever be made entirely safe.
Remember the Chilean miners a couple of years ago ? ..a happy ending to that story at least.
Mikey4444 - what a moving account of that terrible tragedy. I was 10 years old at the time of Aberfan and I remember we had a special assembly in Junior school. We had a French teacher called Miss Davies who had moved from Aberfan to York to start teaching at our school at the start of that term - we had all laughed at her 'funny' accent but we never saw her again after that day - she went back to the Valleys to be with her family.
My own grandfather had warned his bosses about the state of the tip in Aberfan as he used to walk the overhead lines for the coal board. My mother worked at Merthyr Tydfil hospital at the time and she was one of the many who waited for the injured to arrive but they never did and my (biological) father was in the police and was at the scene. I went to college in Merthyr Tydfil and there were students there that had lost siblings in the disaster. So very sad.
The only good thing to come out of all the pit closures is that we don't have to hear about this sort of thing effecting British families.Unfortunately not many countries work to the same satefty standards as British mining did at the end.Several friends of mine worked in mining abroad and the stories they tell about safety practices in some countries are enough to make your hair curl.
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