Next week, Wales will remember the anniversary of one of the most horrific tragedies ever to befall any community in the UK. Many readers will remember the events of October 21st 1966 as some of the most harrowing ever reported in their lifetime. Others, born later, may be only dimly aware of the grim significance of the phrase ‘Aberfan Disaster’.
This week I visited the valley community of Aberfan, only 13 miles from the Vale of Glamorgan to speak to those who remember the catastrophe first hand. You might be able to imagine a wall of wet rock and shale cascading down the side of a valley, an industrial avalanche engulfing the school and houses below. Those I spoke to do not have to imagine. Neither do they have to imagine the aftermath, finding that 144 people had died, 116 of them children.
The cruelty of fate, reflected in the timing of the collapse of the fifty year-old heap, has not been forgotten. Had the slurry slid only minutes earlier the school day would not have yet begun, and had it started only a few hours later the school would have been closed for half term.
We can scarcely appreciate the despair that was, and is still, felt in a community that lost an entire generation in one fell swoop. The ITV Wales documentary The Aberfan Young Wives' Club revealed in powerful personal accounts, how the families of victims had formed a self-help group of their own; the tight community of the valleys sustained them through the immediate aftermath and the longer haul to come. Another recent news report revealed how one of the first police officers at the scene has only felt able to seek treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder in the last five years.
For relatives of those who died, the pain of the disaster goes on. The survivors and trustees of the Aberfan charity told me of how the feelings of loss and emptiness never really depart.
Everyone in Wales should take time to recognise that pain, to remember the horror and to give thanks that no similar tragedy has occurred since. I am very glad that the Welsh national football team has already visited, to bring Aberfan once more to public attention.
Importantly, we should honour the community spirit that exists in Aberfan and across Wales. The black and white 1966 news footage can still be watched on the internet, it shows the whole community racing to unearth victims. There is no doubt that the same spirit has helped, and is helping to mend the deeper psychological scars.
Do remember Aberfan in your thoughts and prayers next week.