Aberfan: Voices

Rained all night, it did.
There was this unearthly sound.
At the school, mothers were digging with their bare hands.
Miners digging like they'd never dug before, 'like butcher's dogs.'
Such a dreadful thing to see grown men crying and digging at the same time.
All round the valleys, men slung their shovels on the backs of vans and went to dig.
My uncle walked over the hill to join the effort.
It was half term in most places. Why were they at school?
The women were very quiet, waiting.
After about eleven o'clock it changed. Somehow the hope went out of the place.
A pall of grief hung over Wales.
Important people came in the days that followed, the Queen, the Prime Minister. Perhaps it helped a little, perhaps there was a degree of welcome.
No one wanted to hear what representatives of the Coal Board might say unless they could tell us how it had occurred. 
It was negligence in the face of warnings that killed our children but they would not have it although we knew it and they knew it.
We drove up the valley before and after. I'll never forget the first time after.
My God, the springs! There were open springs cascading water down. No wonder.
Mount Pleasant - they'll have to rename it, won't they?
A whole generation wiped out in minutes.
Where are they now, our children?

©Janet Henderson 21st October 2016

Voices of friends, acquaintances and family members piecing together an event that need not have happened and that horrified a nation.