Clifford Denton, whose wife Christine's family come from Aberfan, comments on the tragedy from a personal perspective.

On Friday 21 October 1966 I was travelling home from Cornwall on weekend leave from the RAF to visit my parents in South Wales, when the news on my car radio was dominated by the report of the Aberfan disaster. There are many disasters to face in the world but this was one that shocked our entire nation.

On the long car drive I resolved to go up to Aberfan, just an hour away from my parents' home, and join in the relief effort. This was especially poignant because my fiance's aunt had until quite recently been the headmistress of Pantglas Junior School, which suffered most in the catastrophe.

By the time my fiance and I arrived in Aberfan to join the hundreds of others who threw a spade into their car boot in order to do what we could, it was pitch black at night - to add to the black of the dark slurry that had engulfed this mining village. The darkness was only punctuated by the lights here and there where earth-moving machinery was operating. We did our best with our spades, in the slippery slurry on that wet night, but it was literally only scratching the surface in an emotional gesture. It was the professionals who completed the task over the next few days but it was all too late to save any lives, and the death toll mounted.

We went to Auntie Flor's house in Merthyr to wash the coal from our weary bodies, staying the night to bring some consolation to her as she remembered teaching staff with whom she had taught over many years and recalled many of the children who had died. Through the night, as we lay on our beds trying to rest, the clock she had received as a retirement present from the school chimed each hour.

We did our best with our spades, but it was literally only scratching the surface in an emotional gesture.

Looking Back

Since that day we have visited Aberfan a number of times. It is where my wife's family grave is situated, not far from where all those children from the disaster are buried.

Auntie Flor spent the last days of her life living with us in Banbury and I talked to her very much about life in Aberfan when she was a child in the early 1900s. Her family lived in a typical miner's cottage. She spoke of the Welsh Revival and of how every Sunday in those days every single person, except the sick and bedridden, went to Chapel – a river of people filling the streets on their way to Sunday Service.

Her father had been a deacon in Merthyr Vale Baptist Church and worked as a supervisor on the pithead of the local mine – the very mine that decades later would build up tip number 7, the fateful tip that was unsafe due to accumulation of water.

"When did all that end?" I asked her once, referring back to the picture of all those mining families moving as one to Chapel on Sunday. "Oh, it all changed after the Great War", was her answer. All communities of Britain suffered shock in that terrible war, and outward expressions of faith faded. How often this happens - doubts creep in about the Living God when trials hit us severely. So it is that the Aberfan disaster was and still is, 50 years on, a challenge to faith.

Why Does God Allow Such Things?

The question, "Why suffering?" is asked in every generation, especially when a disaster strikes of the immensity of that which came to Aberfan, when a generation of children was all but wiped out in one horrendous blow. Where was God on that day? Why did he allow it to happen?

We can all give opinions on the answer to these questions, but they challenge most deeply when we ourselves or our family, or indeed our entire community, is the subject of devastation. Did we do something wrong? The question is even harder to answer when a large percentage of the 116 children who lost their lives attended local churches. What do we learn?

Aberfan enjoyed revival in the early 1900s, but this all changed after the shock of the first world war.

The answer is clearer from the Bible than we often think. It is nevertheless a difficult truth to hold on to in times of trouble. We live in a fallen world where mankind exercises free will. God's purpose is to restore to himself for eternity those who seek to walk with him. That walk is in an alien world until the time that the Kingdom of God will come in fully. Then, but only then, will all pain and suffering cease.

Nevertheless, God has not left us isolated. He spoke to us through the prophets of Israel in ways that are recorded in our Bibles. His greatest commandments are to love him and to love one another. Our love for one another sets a high priority on care for one another. He makes it clear that neglect of care can leave blood on our hands for the lives of others.

More than this, he has shown that he shares in our pain. When Jesus wept over Jerusalem, seeing what would come on his people following a large-scale rejection of him, he showed that our pain is also his pain. If this was not enough his suffering on the cross, so that all who would believe would have a place reserved for them in heaven for all eternity, proved his great love for us.

Every one of the people who died in Aberfan was known individually by God and he knows their eternal destiny. His sorrow for the neglect of the mine-owners, who created an unsafe tip cutting corners on safety for financial reasons, matches the sorrow of the bereaved.

When Jesus wept over Jerusalem, and then endured the Cross, he showed that our pain is also his pain.

Tests of Faith

As well as testimonies of doubts springing from the disaster of Aberfan there are also many testimonies of faith despite the pain. We can be thankful that God knew those many children who regularly attended the local churches and chapels and who had just come from their school assembly having sung the hymn 'All things bright and beautiful' prior to their deaths. Some from the community continue in our day to speak of good that came from the disaster, looking back over these 50 years. Though there is pain, continuing to reach out in trust to God is the good and right thing to do.

Those who suffer most in such disasters are the immediate family members, but surely next to them would be surviving teachers who had everyday contact with many of the children.

I can say for retired headmistress Miss Florence Havard that her faith never failed her right through her life. She died well into her 80s and she was always a beacon of light in the Christian community – in fact she was quite a character especially loved by children. She was able to balance, grow and maintain that faith that was born in the Welsh revival and matured through days of trial, through wars, national depression (which hit mining communities as strongly as any) and also a major disaster in her home town of Aberfan.

We Must All Take Responsibility

There is another twist in this story, however. The local MP, SO Davies, was a personal friend of Miss Havard. Mr Davies would often call around to her bungalow in Merthyr - one can only conjecture whether they had ever discussed that tip which hovered over the community, threatening to fall one day. At the tribunal, Mr Davies said he had often thought the tip was unsafe but been reluctant to bring it up officially, knowing there would be consequences for the work of miners in the community.

Following the disaster, it also came to light that the local Council had been warned about the tip in 1964 by one of its Councillors. The following year, two parents who also recognised the warning signs petitioned the then headmistress of Pantglas Junior School. She faithfully raised this at succeeding council meetings, but to no avail. Sadly, both the headmistress and children of those two parents all lost their lives in the disaster.

However small a contribution to the responsibility for not averting the disaster, does this not speak of shared responsibility much wider than the main colliery leaders and politicians involved? From the bottom to the top of society we must listen to one another and work together for the care and safety of all – this is in fulfilment of the second Great Commandments to love our neighbour as ourselves.

Can we learn something about this for the days ahead? Are we not corporately responsible for the safety of one another in our communities? Should this not be of the highest priority, especially when the world is becoming more and more unstable, when leadership is weakening and when finance is driving decisions more than care of one another?

Is it not God's intent that we all learn something from the lives that were needlessly lost and the families so sadly bereaved 50 years ago in Aberfan?

As well as testimonies of doubts springing from the disaster of Aberfan there are also many testimonies of faith despite the pain.

God Did and Does Speak

I would like to conclude by drawing attention to two poignant comments.

They both bring tears to the eyes - perhaps God still speaks to us through them this very day. We know from the story of Isaiah that God is not always to be found in the earthquake, fire and storm, but if we walk closely with him, he will be found speaking in the still quiet voice – a voice that comes prophetically from sometimes unexpected sources. Surely the following indicates that God did speak prior to the Aberfan disaster.

The first is the well-known story of Eryl Mai Jones (which has often been interpreted wrongly as psychic insight):

In early October 1966, a ten-year-old Welsh schoolgirl named Eryl Mai Jones had something important to tell her mother.

"Mummy," she said, "I'm not afraid to die."
"You're too young to be talking about dying," her mother said. "Do you want a lollipop?"
On October 20, Eryl Mai woke up after having a memorable dream.
"Mummy, let me tell you about my dream last night," she said.
"Darling, I've no time now. Tell me again later."
"No, Mummy, you must listen," she said. "I dreamt I went to school and there was no school there. Something black had come down all over it".¹

Her mother thought nothing more about the dream...Eryl Mai went off to Pantglas Junior School that day as usual. Nothing unusual happened. The next day, Friday, October 21, she did the same. But at 9:15 that morning, the coal tip gave way, sending tons of coal sludge, water, and boulders onto the village below. The avalanche mowed down everything in its path, including stone houses and trees, and swept toward the Pantglas School, where it crushed the back of the school.

In answer to the question, "Where was God on that day?" the answer is surely, both warning us and with us through this troubled world, offering help where needed, suffering with us on this journey to the day that is not yet but one day will be, of a New Heaven and a New Earth.

The second quote is, to me, both metaphor of shared sufferings which God was fully part of, shared by God and expressed through human love at its highest level midst the trials of this earth. Quoting from the website of Richard Poole, who lost a cousin in the Aberfan tragedy:

144 people died in the Aberfan disaster: 116 of them were school children. About half of the children at Pantglas Junior School, and five of their teachers, were killed. In one classroom 14 bodies were found and outside mothers struggled deep in mud, clamouring to find their children. Many were led away weeping.
The deputy head teacher, Mr Beynon, was found dead. "He was clutching five children in his arms as if he had been protecting them," said a rescuer.²

References

1 Precognition: The Aberfan Disaster. James M Deen, with reference to Barker, J.C. Premonitions of the Aberfan Disaster. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, December 1967: 168-181.

2 Ray Poole's Family History: Merythr Vale and Aberfan.

This week a number of our articles remember the Aberfan tragedy. In his editorial, Clifford Hill thinks particularly of those who lost their faith that day.

50 years ago today, at 9:15am on Friday 21 October 1966, 144 people died in Aberfan near Merthyr Tydfil in Wales. 116 of them were children, who were just beginning their lessons when their school was hit by a mountain of mud sliding down from a coal slag heap towering over the village.

The mudslide hit a farm cottage first, then hit the school and a row of houses before stopping. About half the children and teachers in the Pantglas school were killed. They had just reached their classrooms after leaving morning assembly, where they had been singing 'All things bright and beautiful', praising God for the beauty of the countryside.

The pathos of this tragedy still brings to tears to the eyes of those who remember that tragic day in the history of the valleys, and it can hardly fail to move those who today, 50 years later, read the accounts of eye-witnesses and survivors.

Decent Men Led Astray

There had been many warnings that the tip was unsafe due to the presence of a spring underneath, and heavy rainfall triggered the sudden slide. A board of enquiry was set up that concluded that the National Coal Board was largely to blame and legal liability for compensation was not contested. The report stated:

The Aberfan disaster is a terrifying tale of bungled ineptitude by many men charged with tasks for which they were totally unfitted, of failure to heed clear warnings, and of total lack of direction from above. Not villains but decent men, led astray by foolishness or by ignorance or by both in combination, are responsible for what happened at Aberfan.¹

The pathos of this tragedy still brings to tears to the eyes of those who remember that tragic day.

No one faced criminal proceedings, but those named (and others cleared) had to live with the disaster on their consciences for the rest of their lives. But it was not only officials in the National Coal Board whose lives were affected - everyone in the valleys will remember that day to the end of their lives. Many of them lost their Christian faith on that day. Typical of the comments on the BBC website is the following:

I was 14 at the time of the Aberfan disaster.
My school was very religious, and I had been trying to decide how much I believed in God. When the disaster struck it was the talk of the school, and in many of the classes we found ourselves discussing it with our teachers.
We particularly wanted to know why God would allow so many children to die.
The teachers had no answer. I turned away from the idea that there is a God. And that's my view, to this day.
John Adams, UK²

What is the answer that should have been given to John Adams and all the others who were asking similar questions? Today there are millions asking the same thing, not only of the Aberfan tragedy but of the terrible events we see on our TV news - such as what's happening in Aleppo, where human lives are being deliberately destroyed by bombs dropped upon women and children - not only killing but causing life-changing injuries.

Why doesn't God intervene? Hundreds of books have been written on the subject of human suffering, but the only authentic answers are to be found in the Bible.

The Power to Intervene

The Bible clearly teaches that God has given us freedom of will - to choose the truth, or to be driven to destruction by our own selfish and violent human nature. The Aberfan tragedy was created by human greed and mismanagement in creating a mountainous pile of coal slag and ignoring warnings about its unsafety. Also in this week's issue, Greg Stevenson lists alerts given before the disaster which were ignored, and Clifford Denton notes that God sent prophetic warnings ahead of time.

Many people lost their Christian faith on that day, asking why God didn't intervene.

Through the prophet Jeremiah, God gave warning after warning to the people of Jerusalem that disaster would strike the city unless there was a drastic change in the behaviour of the people. They all believed that they could do what they liked and there would be no bad consequences because God would defend the city from the Babylonians. They ignored the warnings with disastrous results.

God Shares Our Distress

When we wilfully ignore warnings we should not be surprised when tragedy overwhelms us. But incredibly, when that happens, God does not desert us. Isaiah expresses this emphatically; "In all their distress he too was distressed, and the angel of his presence saved them. In his love and mercy he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old" (Isa 63:9). God actually enters into our tragedies alongside us and shares our distress.

This is the teaching of the God of the Bible: that when we bring disaster upon ourselves and cry out to him for help, he responds in love and compassion. "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers they will not sweep over you...Do not be afraid, for I am with you." (Isa 43:2-5).

In the Midst of Trial

This does not mean that nothing will ever go wrong, or that we will not suffer hardship - but that in the midst of trial, God will never desert us. Jesus promised to be with his disciples for ever. "I will never leave you alone," he promised (John 14:18).

Jesus himself lived the message of God's love. He knew that his Father would not intervene to save him from a cruel death at the hands of evil men - but that by not intervening, God would actually use this suffering to work out his purposes of salvation to be available for all human beings.

God actually enters into our tragedies alongside us and shares in our distress.

Of course, I'm aware that the thoughts expressed on this page cannot possibly answer all the questions about human suffering. But I hope they may stimulate some of our readers to offer thoughts on this subject which may be a help to those who are struggling to understand why tragedies such as Aberfan occur. For myself I can affirm the words of the Apostle Paul, "For I am convinced that neither death nor life...nor anything in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Rom 8:38-39).

References

1 The Aberfan Disaster – Inquiries. The National Archives.

2 1966: Aberfan - A generation wiped out. BBC Witness, On This Day.