InsaneJournal

On October 21st 1966 I was off school with my annual October cold so I was at home when news started coming through that a coal tip had slid down a mountain in South Wales and buried Pant Glas Junior school in Aberfan. 28 adults and 122 children died. I have never forgotten the coverage. One thing I can particularly remember was the demonstration of what happens when you add water to coal waste. It turns into a this thick black sludge that swallows everything in its path. That's what happened at Aberfan. Thousands of tons of coal waste just fell down the mountain, taking a farm and its occupants with it, and swamped the school.
The programme was naturally sad and it was amazing to see how people spoke with dignity and without hysteria about digging in houses and the school with no hope of life to find their children, mothers, friends. It was also very damning about the reasons for the disaster. The National Coal Board was in charge of all mining operations in Britain at the time. Most of the communities in South Wales owed their existence to the mines that they served. I am a product of a mining community in the North East of England and there is no doubt to me that they are close knit and everyone knows and cares about everyone else. So after the disaster everyone helped each other to cope. It's just as well, because there was nobody else. No one had heard of Post traumatic stress in those days, no one knew how to deal with the loss of a village's children so the people had to help themselves.
Of course money was sent to a disaster fund from all over the world, £1.75 million in fact, the equivalent of about £18 million in today's figures. However, the Charity Commission had to be in charge of that and they decided that the parents had to be means tested to see how much money they deserved depending on how close they were to their children. It beggars belief. In addition, after the Inquiry into the disaster, where nobody was found guilty of any crime, in spite of the fact that it was known that a spring ran through the tip so it was a disaster waiting to happen,  the Coal Board offered the families £50 compensation which was then upgraded to the 'generous' sum of £500.
Furthermore, part of the money (£150,000) sent by caring people from all over the world was taken by the Government and put towards the cost of removing the pit heaps still above the village. It was finally returned in 1997. All of this happened for political reasons. The coal industry was losing money hand over fist and closures were inevitable. In order stave off that and the certainty of a National Miners strike in the days when unions were powerful, certain cover ups had to happen. This was the worst. The miners strike didn't happen until the 1980s and it was the last salute of the old trade union days which ended in bloody violence. Watch 'Brassed Off' to see what that was like. Instead of the Labour Party, Margaret Thatcher became the bogey and Labour politicians could maintain their role of the working man's representatives until Tony Blair came along.

I have driven through Aberfan. I was there in the 70s while at University in Cardiff. It was a depressing place, still dark and dirty from the inevitable muck from the mines. From the road I could see the cemetery on the hillside where 82 of the children are buried in a communal grave marked by a tombstone of white marble arches. It stretched the length of the cemetery. It was a terrible thing and I felt uncomfortable looking at it. 
http://www.shaggysheep.com/Aberfan.htm

The community survived. The money went to building a Community Centre and swimming pool, a children's playground and a new school, although the Coal Board never reimbursed Merthyr Council for the cost of it. Life for the survivors carried on. But it was a terrible price to pay.
My grandfather died from a disease that affected miners in the days before safety regulations prevented it. He had emphysema, black lung, or pneumoconiosis. He died a painful death when I was 4. My nana got nothing. Years later, the Government introduced a retrospective compensation package for families of miners who had died or were dying as a result of mining diseases. My mother decided to apply as my nana was long dead. After a great deal of correspondence and having to produce death certificate and proof of relationship, the damning question was asked: did your father smoke? Of course he did; everybody did in the 1930s and 1940s. He survived the First world war, he worked through the Second and he died in the 1950s. My mother was offers less than £50. That was less than 5 years ago. Nothing changes.
So whenever someone makes an appeal on lj or ij for help and people rally round and offer what they can, I think, there's true community spirit for you. Long may it continue.