The Aberfan disaster through the eyes of those who survived, 60 years on
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60 years on: The Aberfan disaster through the eyes of those who survived Few events have left a deeper mark on Wales than the Aberfan disaster.
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Sixty years on, the tragedy remains woven into the nation's collective memory, a day of unimaginable loss that reshaped a community and changed attitudes to industrial safety across Britain.
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At 09:15 on 21 October 1966, an ordinary school morning was shattered when a coal tip above Aberfan collapsed. 144 people died following the Aberfan landslide in October 1966 Black slurry thundered down the mountainside, engulfing Pantglas Junior School and nearby homes.
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Within moments, 144 people were dead, including 116 children, on what was the last day of school before the half term holiday.
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On the 60th anniversary, those who were there share their harrowing memories.
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Mair was a 25-year-old teacher and had worked at Pantglas School for a year "What I remember was the drizzly rain, it was misty. I rang the bell to start school at about ten to nine, before the children went in.
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"There was this terrible noise, and I looked out of the window.
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I could see a wall had collapsed and realised I had to get my pupils outside.
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"As we escaped, I saw the caretaker rushing to get other children out. "They opened Bethania Chapel to take children who had died, but the first bodies were placed in a shelter in the playground.
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"We identified them before they were cleaned up, and before their parents were told. "I found that very hard.
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I remember one little girl, I can see her face now.
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Stephen Andrew pulled Gareth to safety on that fateful day "There was this really unusual sound, like a rumble.
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Like if you chuck stones across the floor, but it was getting louder and louder.
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"Next thing, water was seeping through the floor, the walls were cracking and timbers were breaking. "The teacher put a desk on a table, and a small chair on top of that.
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She climbed on top and smashed the window.
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"And then she held us up, probably by the scruffs of our necks, to get us out through it. "I am so grateful for her quick thinking, she saved our lives.
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"When I got outside, I could see a mountain of coal and slurry, with dust and water everywhere.
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"I ran home, and remember saying: 'Mam, mam, the mountain came down to the school'." Gaynor Madgwick was eight and went to school that day with her brother Carl, seven, and sister Marylyn, 10 "I heard this tremendous sound, like a hurricane.
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It was so overwhelming, I knew something was coming, but didn't know what.
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"Then this mass of black came crashing through the window, hurling me from the front of the classroom to the back.
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"I woke up to find the classroom was no longer the classroom.
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The roof had caved in on us, and we were completely buried.
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"I couldn't see my legs, I thought they had gone.
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"A pupil in front of me was trapped, and he had blood trickling down his head. Another one was trying to get through the roof to get help.
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"My head was cut open, and I couldn't move my hand as it was stuck in the cracked wall.
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"I pinched the hand of a child near me to see if it would move. It didn't. "Then I heard someone shout 'I'm going to smash the window' and saw my grandfather.
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"I started to cry and will never forget the look in his eyes knowing I was alive.
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"I'd broken my femur, my leg was just swinging and my shoes had gone. "'I'll buy you all the shoes you need,' my mum said as she greeted me outside.
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"My parents then ran off to find my siblings.
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"I was later told Carl and Marylyn had died, and all my friends had gone as well.
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Jeff Edwards: 'The rumbling sound got louder and louder' "As the teacher spoke by the blackboard, there was a rumbling sound that got louder and louder.
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"The lights started to sway back and fore, but the teacher reassured us there was nothing to worry about.
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It was only thunder.
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"The next thing I remember was waking up and seeing light from the sky because the roof had come in.
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"I was stuck but awake and could see a dead girl on my shoulder.
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"There was screaming, shouting and crying, but this got less and less."
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Jeff Edwards was the last child to be pulled out alive "This was because the children were dying of physical trauma, the roof and slurry coming in, or they couldn't breathe, they had no air.
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"I was lucky because I had this balloon of air around me.
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"The fire service broke through the window from the hall, and somebody saw my white hair. "They started digging and eventually they got me out, passing me in a chain from one fireman to another.
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"I got out just after 11, and was the last child to come out alive.
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"Tom Harding, the local grocer, threw me in his van with the cabbages and the carrots, and took me to St Tydfil's Hospital."
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David Davies was presumed dead and placed with other bodies before somebody noticed his foot moving "I was at my desk, quite close to the western side of the school that took the fullest impact.
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"Almost immediately I was engulfed with debris and falling masonry, which knocked me unconscious.
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"I'm told I was brought out and placed with the deceased bodies and covered with a blanket.
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"Then someone thought they saw my foot move.
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"I was evidently still alive and taken to hospital."
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Janett was the only child on her street to return home from school on the day of the disaster "After having pneumonia, I almost stayed at home - but was determined to go in for the last day.
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"I looked out of the window towards the tip and told my teacher I could see smoke.
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"He said it was just steam from the canteen, which I thought was odd, because there was no canteen in the infants school - that was in the senior school.
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"I put my head on the desk with my book over it - I don't know why, it was just instinct.
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"The next thing I knew, I woke up and I was under coal, soil and muck.
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"When I tried to breathe, I just sucked water in and I had coal waste over my face.
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"There was lots of crying and screaming, then it went black again.
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"When I woke up, there was silence, nobody crying, and the little boy next to me was dead.
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"One of my classmates was walking around and he helped dig me out.
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"In the hallway, there was a queue of children waiting to be pulled out of the window by a teacher.
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"There was one boy stood there and he just wouldn't move, he was stunned.
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"I was pulled out and never knew what happened to him.
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"Then I found out years later he'd died of a heart attack before being rescued."
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Ray Lee hoped to find his only child Anne, who was eight "I can remember being very, very close to her.
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She used to do things like comb my hair.
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I had great hopes for her.
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"We had breakfast, I went to work and Anne went to school.
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"It was absolute chaos there - people trying to get into the school.
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"There was hope in my mind they may find her.
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I was walking the roads until 10 at night, just living in hope.
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"I didn't know for certain she'd died until I saw her in the mortuary in Bethania Chapel.
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I'd like to have known her for that bit longer, because the eight years went very quickly."
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David Evans was one of the few people in Aberfan with a telephone, and called emergency services "A neighbour knocked on my door and he was in a terrible state, shaking like a leaf.
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"He wanted to use my phone to call the fire brigade because a house on Moy Road had collapsed.
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"As we talked, a lady ran past shouting: 'The school has gone, the school has gone.' "I ran down the road and was taken aback - the houses on Moy Road were concertinaed. "A child was shouting 'help me, help me' from under the rubble. "People were going to him, so I headed for the school.
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"Lorries were arriving, each with about 40 miners from Merthyr Vale colliery who had shovels and pickaxes.
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"There were bereaved mothers, and I thought 'What the hell has happened?' "Policemen were carrying stretchers with body bags on them, and I thought to myself, 'where is God?
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How did he allow this to happen with all these children?'" Mel Parry was an 18-year-old apprentice photographer with the Merthyr Express newspaper "I had been on the bus through Aberfan when somebody shouted 'the school has fallen down'. "I remember thinking 'that sounds a bit silly', but looked up and there was a gap.
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"If you've ever seen photos, it [the slurry] took the junior school, but left the senior school completely free.
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"I was thinking something's not right, but then your journalistic brain kicks into gear, and I realised I had work to do.
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"Not as something you want to do, but it's your job."
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Calvin Pugsley, originally from Merthyr Tydfil, covered the story for the Birmingham Evening Mail.
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He described his experiences before his death "You could just about see the top of the school, but it was totally engulfed by this black mass.
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"Men worked with shovels, their hands, desperately trying to find survivors.
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"Every so often, a whistle blew and everybody stopped working.
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"There'd be total silence while they listened for signs of life.
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"I was aware of some terrible stories, including of two men who played rugby for Merthyr.
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"One was Dai Beynon, the deputy headmaster and a big bear of a man.
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"He scooped as many children as he could in his arms to shield them.
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"When the room was cleared, they found him still holding them. "And there was Bill Evans - a teacher in Merthyr Tydfil.
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"When he got back to Aberfan, having heard about the disaster, all he had left was what he was standing up in.
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"His wife and two children had died, and their home had been swept away."
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Jeanette Keane was in a nearby grammar school when she heard her sister Edwina was in danger "I was at nearby Quakers Yard Grammar School, and there were rumours something had happened and children had died.
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"So we went running out, we all just wanted to go home.
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"My parents weren't there, they were at the school, my father digging.
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"He had found my sister Edwina and she was alive.
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But he couldn't get her out because the roof would have fallen in. "My father laid by the side of her.
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He held her hand and she suffocated."
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Denise Morgan remembers it being very hard after losing her sister "I was 11 and remember my dad coming home with my sister Annette's purse and a piece of her dress.
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"He had identified her in the makeshift morgue in the chapel.
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"When I asked what she looked like, he said 'as if she was sleeping'.
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"Those were his words.
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She was peaceful.
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"There was only 18 months between us, we were very close as sisters.
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"From then on, not having her by the side of me was just an enormous loss.
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"You're only 11 and trying to understand what has happened."
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The towns Methodist minister was heading Pontypridd when he saw all the emergency vehicles heading to Aberfan "Once I got down into the village, the people were standing all over the pavements with bewildered looks on their faces.
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"But then of course, as the day went on, then we realised the extent of this tragedy, and we just stood around talking and holding hands and just waiting and wondering.
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"I think the real effect of it came during the night, when mainly fathers had to go in to identify their children and that was the worst part of all.
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"And I went in with quite a number of the fathers.
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"I well remember one fellow I went in with, and we went around the pews where the children were laid out with blankets over them, and then eventually we lifted the blanket and there was his son.
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"And of course, he burst into tears, and I followed.
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And we just stood there crying. "In the Bethania vestry, nurses and St John's Ambulance people had to wash down these little bodies and then lay them out.
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"That must have been the hardest part of all." Pete, along with 30 other crew members from HMS Tiger were bussed up to Aberfan with a police escort to help "We were given details of different jobs to do.
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"I was personally digging drainage ditches to divert the water... others were doing rescue work.
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"Sadly, some of them were involved with recovery and security.
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"When we first got there, there was no heavy digging equipment.
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"So the thing that struck me was seeing people literally digging with their hands.
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"There were people doing human chains, just moving stuff out one after another. Royal Family to visit Aberfan to mark 60 years since disaster The portraits that helped bring the lost Aberfan children home I took one of the most famous photos of the Aberfan disaster - it still haunts me
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