DOUBLE-LENGTH ARTICLE
Fifteen miles from the south coast of a part of Great Britain is a riverside village which appears entirely at peace with itself. A narrow road bridge spans the 15-metre-wide river forming its eastern boundary. I am sitting with my younger son on a grey stone wall, listening to birdsong and the flowing water. On the riverside is a row of fairly new, detached houses which face the river, almost in reverence of this real-life picture postcard. The water is crystal clear. At the edge, we can see pebbles beneath the sparkling surface. Deeper, out of sight, is an abundance of marine life, including migratory fish – salmon, eels and brown trout – as well as countless species of water plants and invertebrates.
An unpaved footpath follows the river along its west bank. It extends beyond a small weir to a larger bridge, about half a mile north of here. There are a few medium-sized trees, all still in full leaf, and an expanse of lush grass visible as far as the river bend.
Turning to look west, away from the river, there are a few rows of narrow, terraced houses. Each row becomes slightly higher, as they progress up the valley side. These homes are old but immaculate. Their stonework is clean, sills appear freshly painted, all have modern doors and windows, and there are several baskets and window boxes overflowing with multicoloured surfinia petunias.
Nothing of this village is unsightly, but its benign appearance disguises a tragic past. Under greater scrutiny, its history cannot help but reveal itself. There are subtle signs here and there. The houses were not always built to face the river. Those old terraces were made to look the other way, in an era when the water was toxic with chemical waste and in which no living creatures could thrive. Their stone walls and slated roofs used to be discoloured by an even coating of pollution. Cleanliness might, to their former occupants, have been next to godliness, but it was also, for most of the time, next to impossible.
Walking westward up the hill, and looking back toward the river, something very unusual, and instantly unsettling, becomes apparent. The first house in the uppermost terrace is number eleven. Adjacent to it is a gently-sloping lawn, as wide as it would be if occupied by about five more similar-sized houses. A stepping-stone footpath separates this grassy wedge from a row of brick-walled houses further down, built circa 1970 and hence conspicuous alongside the truncated old terraced row. The gable end of number eleven has been reinforced, at front and back corners, with strong brick pillars dovetailed into the old stonework. That is the giveaway. This is Aberfan.
Aberfan used to be a mining village, dependent on the nearby Merthyr Vale Colliery, until its closure in 1989. In the year I was born, 1966, an unprecedented disaster unfolded. On the morning of Friday, 21st October, after heavy rainfall, 40,000 cubic metres of mining debris slid down the valley side, destroying a farm, a junior school and part of a row of terraced houses in a matter of seconds. The fast-moving slurry killed 144 people, of which 116 were children.
Since the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century, coal-mining had been a dangerous, disgusting, debilitating and degrading occupation. (For an honest overview, read Germinal by Emile Zola (1840-1902).) Every day that miners went to work, families could never be certain that their menfolk had not left home for the last time. Mining disasters in Britain were commonplace. Flooding, structural collapses and methane explosions regularly took thousands of lives and condemned thousands more to heartbreak and destitution. Some were caused by ‘acts of God’, others by the greed and negligence of Man. Aberfan, however, was hideously unique: for once, the mining industry spared its subterranean slaves ... and took away their children instead.
There is now a memorial garden where the school once stood. Its grey-stone, metre-tall perimeter walls demarcate the original rectangular classrooms (Figure 140.1). The tranquil interior is full of well-tended shrubs and flowerbeds (Figure 140.2), interspersed with polished wooden benches bearing thoughtful messages engraved on shiny metal plaques. Next to it is a playground full of young children. I cannot help but wonder to what extent they are aware of its history. They appear happy and carefree. From here, the abrupt end of the severed terrace on Moy Road looks even more stark. It is possible to outline the exact path of the 1966 landslide simply by noticing where the old ends and the new(er) begins (Figures 140.3 & 140.4).
Figure 140.1: Memorial plaque at the former site of Pant Glas Junior School
Copyright © 2020 Paul Spradbery
Figure 140.2: A gift to Aberfan from H. M. The Queen
Copyright © 2020 Paul Spradbery
Figure 140.3: The frantic recovery effort amid the remains of Pant Glas Junior School in October 1966. In the background are the surviving houses on Moy Road. Number eleven is furthest left.
Copyright © 1966 BBC
Figure 140.4: Moy Road today. The reinforced wall at the end of the terrace is evident. To the left are the roofs of post-1966 houses and a lawn where the rest of the terrace once stood. Providing this image with unintentional symbolism, a young girl is entering number eleven.
Copyright © 2020 Paul Spradbery
There was one last place that we wanted to visit. Halfway up the steep western side of the valley lies Bryntaf Cemetery. It was here to where a generation of tough but broken miners carried the coffins of their own children through the rain of an grim October morning, more than half a century ago. Standing out against the weathered hillside are two rows of brilliant white arches, and, beneath them, pristine gravestones bearing excruciating epitaphs (Figure 140.5). Most convey pious messages, written by bereaved parents clinging desperately to the Christian doctrine (Figure 140.6). I would defy even the most cold-hearted, thick-skinned individual to spend a moment here and not be moved by it all.
Figure 140.5: Some of the epitaphs are legible when the photograph is enlarged.
Copyright © 2020 Paul Spradbery
Figure 140.6: The emotive focal point of Bryntaf Cemetery
Copyright © 2020 Paul Spradbery
The cemetery affords a panoramic view of the entire village and beyond. To the south, on a grassed roundabout, is the old winding wheel from the pit-head of Merthyr Vale Colliery, set immovably in concrete. Standing before it is a black sculpture of a coal miner holding a shovel (Figure 140.7). Across the valley, the eastern slopes are covered with tall trees and rolling fields. This is how it would have looked prior to industrialization, and how it will probably remain for the knowable future. Some new houses are under construction on the eastern side of the bridge. Eventually, the River Taff, with its unpolluted water and burgeoning wildlife, will become the central thread of Aberfan, taking pride of place, rather than a shameful eyesore which a coal-blackened village contrived to hide and ignore.
Figure 140.7: To commemorate Merthyr Vale Colliery (1869-1989), this statue was unveiled in 2015 ‘to enlighten the interested and keep memories of this community’s heritage alive’.
Copyright © 2020 Paul Spradbery
A few decades ago, coal-mining was a prominent, and seemingly permanent, feature in British economic and social life. However, it had been in decline since well before 1966. In the early 1980s, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher became a hated figure throughout mining communities when she outlined plans to decimate what was left of the industry. In truth, though, far more collieries were closed, and miners made unemployed, in the 1960s. Thatcher did not wield the biggest axe, only the final one.
In time, coal-mining in Britain will be viewed as an aberration, albeit one that lasted a century and a half and took the lives of 160,000 miners. Its terminal decline was probably inevitable, as a result of global markets and greener, cheaper energy alternatives. Today’s generation of Aberfan residents are generally engaged in safer, cleaner employment. Nonetheless, the transformation from industrial to post-industrial was always going to be a traumatic process.
Aberfan is once again a picturesque representation of the natural world. The repulsive essence of coal-mining is now a matter only for scholars of history. The indescribable agony of Friday, 21st October, 1966 will fade in the collective memory to an eventual footnote. As my son and I gaze across the Taff Valley toward a green infinity, it seems all too easy to imagine that the former, dirty, industrial life of so many British villages was just a brief, nightmarish mirage (Figure 140.8).
Figure 140.8: A typical British mining village scene from the 1960s. Note the blackening of the stone wall houses, caused by particulate pollution containing arsenic, lead and mercury.
Copyright unknown
In memoriam: Ronald Dove (1908-1987).
Copyright © 2020 Paul Spradbery
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