A new BBC documentary, Aberfan: The Village That Fought Back, chronicles the devastating 1966 mining disaster and the decades-long struggle of grieving families for justice, highlighting the contemptuous treatment they endured from the National Coal Board (NCB) and government officials.
The film opens with the harrowing personal stories of survivors and bereaved parents. Ray Lee, now 90, lost his daughter Anne on 21 October 1966, when an estimated 100,000 tonnes of slurry from a colliery spoil tip engulfed Pantglas junior school and surrounding houses. Anne was one of 116 children killed, alongside 28 adults. Lee recalls, "I'd like to have known her that bit longer, really. Those eight years went very, very quickly. I loved the child. I lost her. And that seemed to me to be the end of everything really, when she'd gone."
Survivors' Stories and the Immediate Aftermath
Gaynor Madgwick (née Minett), who was in the same school and same age as Anne, survived despite being severely injured when the initial impact catapulted her to the far wall. Her grandfather dug her out. That evening in hospital, when she asked her father where her brother and sister were, he told her they had both gone to heaven. Marlene Gerlach remembers screaming for her three children across the unrecognisable school site; they all survived, but the guilt has never left her.
The documentary devotes its first quarter to these stories, emphasising the duty to bear witness to the suffering that lives on. It then turns to the appalling reactions of the NCB and ministers, particularly George Thomas, the secretary of state for Wales, who failed to stand up to the board and its chairman Sir Alf Robens. Robens, whose contemptuous attitude towards the village was evident from the start, went ahead with his installation ceremony as the first chancellor of the new University of Surrey on the Friday of the disaster instead of travelling immediately to Wales, arriving on Saturday evening instead.
The NCB's Denials and the Tribunal's Findings
The waste heap had been built on top of several springs, making it inherently unstable. The coal board denied knowledge of them, claiming they had been covered before it took over responsibility. However, the tribunal set up to inquire into the causes found evidence that the NCB knew this and other tips were built over multiple water sources, contravening all guidelines. Its report detailed many failings in the "terrifying tale of bungling ineptitude" and laid the blame firmly with the NCB, but no further action was taken against it.
Further indignities followed. Gaynor remembers her father sitting "puce with rage" every evening as the NCB fought liability and denied the need to remove the tips. "He said it was murder, every day," she recalls. Her mother was on Valium and moved through the days "like a zombie."
The Fight for Justice and Compensation
The Aberfan Disaster Fund had received charitable donations from more than 50,000 members of the public. When the NCB finally agreed to remove the tip, it demanded £250,000 from the fund towards the cost. The fund, left unprotected by the Charity Commission, handed over £150,000. When disbursing funds to intended recipients, the Commission offered £50 a household, but only if parents could prove they had been close to the dead child.
The people of Aberfan fought back repeatedly. They formed committees, wrote letters, and visited Thomas's offices in London, where they emptied a bag of slurry on to the floor, calling him "our minister but he was a coward." Government material released under the "30-year rule" in 1997 showed how deep the contempt ran, confirming the sense of betrayal felt in 1966, especially from a Labour government and a Labour-nationalised coal board. The newly elected Blair government returned the money, and ten years later, the Welsh Assembly adjusted the payment for inflation and added £2m to the pot.
Ray Lee went on to have two more children, saying, "It did help a lot that all the love we wanted to give to Anne and we couldn't, we could give to them." Nobody was ever held to personal account or punished for the disaster. Sixty years on, with Hillsborough, Grenfell, and so many more national disgraces behind us, the documentary leaves a sombre reflection on the potential for more catastrophes to come.
