Cofiwch Aberfan

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Yesterday marked the 55th anniversary of the Aberfan disaster. I had recently started secondary school that year and we had a weekly charity collection in our form meeting in the morning before lessons began. The usual collection was a handful of copper - ha'pennies, pennies at best; but the day we collected for Aberfan, the amount of money in the pot was several orders of magnitude greater than the usual shrapnel in the pot. I used to have the figures in my head, but time and age have succeeded in denying such exactitude. I think the event resonated with us and our parents particularly because it was our generation of children particularly who were swept up in the appalling events of that day.

Comments

  1. Joe Stoner24 October 2021 at 07:11

    I was on a Geology field trip in 1988 and when our coach, unexpectedly, passed Aberfan ALL us tetosterone charged young men (YEAH NO women on our Civ Eng course!!) fell silent. I now know what a reveal is and I've wondered if our geology lecturer (VV wise man who gave me one of the best bit of advice about geology: The Earths crust is just like the crust on a rice pudding") planned it to be so; I now think he did!
    Thank goodness chunks of slate will only avalanche under extreme "wobbles of the crust"!!!:(

    ReplyDelete
  2. Joe Stoner26 October 2021 at 00:28

    SO sobering seeing Aberfan on a sign post only a couple of miles away from my daughter's abode. Will definitely take Kids & Gkids to show respect soon as I have a car that the RAC treat properly!:(((

    ReplyDelete

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