Heartlands Tribune ☭ Written by Paul Knaggs.
On 21 October 1966, a mountain of colliery waste came down on a Welsh village and killed 144 people, 116 of them children. The National Coal Board had been warned in writing, three years earlier, that it would.
The last ordinary sound in Pantglas Junior School was children’s chatter about half-term. The holiday started at midday. Library books had been put away, the first lesson had begun, and when a rumbling came down off the hillside, low at first and then louder, a teacher told his class not to worry. It was only thunder.
It was not thunder. It was Tip No. 7.
Earlier that morning mothers had stood in their doorways and watched their children go up the wet streets into a fog thick enough to hide the mountain. They waved. It costs nothing to wave. You do it a thousand times without once thinking about it, and that is the particular cruelty of Aberfan: nobody got to say a proper goodbye, because nobody knew that a goodbye was required.
At around a quarter past nine, roughly 300,000 cubic yards of liquefied spoil, slack, broke away and went down the valley at speeds of up to 50mph.
On 21 October 1966, a mountain of colliery waste came down on a Welsh village and killed 144 people, 116 of them children. The National Coal Board had been warned in writing, three years earlier, that it would.
The last ordinary sound in Pantglas Junior School was children’s chatter about half-term. The holiday started at midday. Library books had been put away, the first lesson had begun, and when a rumbling came down off the hillside, low at first and then louder, a teacher told his class not to worry. It was only thunder.
It was not thunder. It was Tip No. 7.
Earlier that morning mothers had stood in their doorways and watched their children go up the wet streets into a fog thick enough to hide the mountain. They waved. It costs nothing to wave. You do it a thousand times without once thinking about it, and that is the particular cruelty of Aberfan: nobody got to say a proper goodbye, because nobody knew that a goodbye was required.
At around a quarter past nine, roughly 300,000 cubic yards of liquefied spoil, slack, broke away and went down the valley at speeds of up to 50mph.
Continue @ Heartlands Tribune.






















