Aberfan - 50 years on

There will no doubt be many programmes to commemorate the 50th anniversary on 21st October of this terrible incident. Here's just one of them.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07zk62d

This one will be on BBC1 Wales tomorrow at 21.00 and on BBC4 at the same time on Thursday.

I was 9 at the time,I can remember watching it on the news with my parents.

I've never heard of or read about this terrible disaster. At the time I was living in a rented room in Amsterdam without radio or t.v. [and no warm water, shower, private toilet as for that matter ...] That was the way things were then, as members, old enough like me, will remember.

This is absolutely unimaginably HORRIBLE. All this children buried within minutes and dead

50 years ago today.

https://fleetstreetmemories.wordpress.com/2016/10/07/aberfan-disaster/

I must admit I knew nothing of this tragic event until fairly recently.

How very sad indeed.

Andrew wrote:I must admit I knew nothing of this tragic event until fairly recently.

How very sad indeed.

Apologies - I didn't know there was a thread already.

Strangely I first heard about this disaster many years ago via some kind of paranormal angle - there were a high number of seemingly corroborated premonitions of the events.

I'm not sure if you mean that you heard of it before or after the actual event.

Apologies if I'm assuming that you are a lot older than you are!

Freedom wrote:I'm not sure if you mean that you heard of it before or after the actual event.

Apologies if I'm assuming that you are a lot older than you are!

Way too young I'm afraid. My only premonitions are about the 2021 Great Fire of Hemel Hempstead. I'd give the place a wide berth around the 27th August that year, if I were you.

Anyway, from http://www.paranormaldatabase.com/wales/waledata.php

Mass Premonition

Location: Aberfan (Mid Glamorgan) - No fixed location

Type: Other

Date / Time: Pre 21 October 1966

Further Comments: According to the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, Vol 44, no 734, around 200 people reportedly predicted this disaster in the days leading up to it, including a local girl who was unfortunately one of those killed in the appalling accident.

I was "chatting" to one of my Facebook friends about Aberfan this week. She was finding it hard to believe that it happened in 1966 as she has vivid memories of, as a child of about 8 or 9, watching the coverage live on TV and reading the press coverage for days afterwards.

The only problem there is that she was born in 1974! I did suggest that she saw a programme looking back on the event but she feels sure that it was the coverage at the time that she saw and read.

Had a quick look on that paranormal link earlier. Some interesting and very weird stuff on there.

It happened before I was born and I'm also from the Netherlands.

My Welsh husband told me about it. His aunt went there almost immediately to run a soup kitchen for families/helpers. She could never talk about it.

A heart-breaking tragedy.

I think there were some smaller landslides beforehand, but nothing was done about it by the National Coal Board.

Soon afterwards a disaster fund was set up for the victims. The generous British public donated to this in their droves.
Shockingly part of this fund (£150,000) was raided by the then Labour Government under Harold Wilson. This money was used to clear the tips, owned by the National Coal Board, that should have paid for it.

About 30 years later the then Labour Government repaid this £150,000 to the fund. However, without interest, nor taking inflation into account. The amount repaid should probably have been about £1,500,000. Absolutely awful how those poor people of Aberfan were treated.