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Rembering Aberfan


steve_b_wales
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nation was in shock............

at least it made collery owners aware of the danger of poorly designed spoil heaps...and forced them to put in dewatering measuers and reducing the load on slippage planes.......

so at least "lessons were learnt"................and it hasnt happened since

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39 minutes ago, Pushkin said:

I was a child myself at the time and was very upset about this. God bless them all and keep them forever in his radiance.

Pushkin🤔

Myself too. Aberfan is only a few miles up the road from me. I have visited the graves of many of the children a few times and it's very moving. I was 9 years old at the time.

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2 hours ago, ditchman said:

nation was in shock............

at least it made collery owners aware of the danger of poorly designed spoil heaps...and forced them to put in dewatering measuers and reducing the load on slippage planes.......

so at least "lessons were learnt"................and it hasnt happened since

We still have tips collapsing every now and then. Only a few years back the tip above a small village called Tylorstown collapsed after some heavy rain. Fortunately this time it only trashed a cycle way and the rear car park of the leisure centre. It's since had a millions or so £'s spent stabilising it to ensure it stays put.

Aberfan was the worst and most famous tip collapse but it's far from the only one. They are all ticking timebombs waiting to go off and I believe that councils still spend a lot of money every year monitoring them. At some point someone will need to stomach the bill to remove them completely.

The village I grew up in had a whole street destroyed by a coal tip collapsing back in the 60's. Luckily it resulted in no deaths and only required the compulsory purchase of the whole street and subsequent demolition by the council. Same village that the The Crown television series recreation of the disaster was filmed. It was filmed in the same primary school I attended.

Edited by Poor Shot
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I'm from mining stock, but the 1948 education act helped my family you see.....Dad was a newly qualified Doctor in 1966, so he and a few of his colleagues headed to Aberfan to try to help....they were turned back, the community did not need Doctors they needed colliers and miners to find bodies. I always find that story heart breaking. Aberfan is a real black mark on history. 😢

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6 hours ago, Poor Shot said:

We still have tips collapsing every now and then. Only a few years back the tip above a small village called Tylorstown collapsed after some heavy rain. Fortunately this time it only trashed a cycle way and the rear car park of the leisure centre. It's since had a millions or so £'s spent stabilising it to ensure it stays put.

Aberfan was the worst and most famous tip collapse but it's far from the only one. They are all ticking timebombs waiting to go off and I believe that councils still spend a lot of money every year monitoring them. At some point someone will need to stomach the bill to remove them completely.

The village I grew up in had a whole street destroyed by a coal tip collapsing back in the 60's. Luckily it resulted in no deaths and only required the compulsory purchase of the whole street and subsequent demolition by the council. Same village that the The Crown television series recreation of the disaster was filmed. It was filmed in the same primary school I attended.

What village was that?

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I was playing in a Bristol group at that time and not long after the disaster we had a gig at Garndiffaith RFC. It was difficult to find because, quite understandably, road signs had been broken and defaced to prevent unwanted gawpers.

I do remember watching slag heaps increasing in size. My great grandfather was a miner in Treorchy. From there my grandfather was a hewer of coal in Nine Mile Point colliery Cwmfelinfach. As a child my mother used to take me on her annual trip to Cwmfelin where she was born and I would watch the wagons tipping slag on the heap of nine mile point. All gone now, except the memories.

 

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33 minutes ago, Bobba said:

I was playing in a Bristol group at that time and not long after the disaster we had a gig at Garndiffaith RFC. It was difficult to find because, quite understandably, road signs had been broken and defaced to prevent unwanted gawpers.

I do remember watching slag heaps increasing in size. My great grandfather was a miner in Treorchy. From there my grandfather was a hewer of coal in Nine Mile Point colliery Cwmfelinfach. As a child my mother used to take me on her annual trip to Cwmfelin where she was born and I would watch the wagons tipping slag on the heap of nine mile point. All gone now, except the memories.

 

Yep, Mother was from Up The Garn.

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