Remembering Aberfan

Personal reflections and a hymn

The rows of headstones marking the 144 people who died at Aberfan

The clocks stopped at 9.13am on October 21, 1966, when a tip made up of mining waste slid down the mountain above Pantglas Junior School in Aberfan and covered classrooms. Within a very short time 144 people, most of them children, had died.

From that moment, the village’s name became locked into the list of places that rang with the agony of tragedy. To say the name Aberfan was to open up a memory of loss for almost everyone who heard it.

In the late 1970s, the editor of the South Wales Echo - the daily evening paper for the region - banned any coverage of anniversaries or personal stories, not because he was heartless but because the experience still felt too raw.

With the distance of years, it has become more acceptable to recall the event and, in 2016, survivors and bereaved families shared their stories as special events were held to mark the 50th anniversary.

Stop all the clocks

Away from the media, the event left its mark on so many who have links to South Wales. People recalled their family, who often lived away from the Valleys, walking out of their jobs and driving to Aberfan to join the army of diggers who descended on the disaster site.

Overwhelmed by the swarm of volunteers, rescue workers and media were the village families who had to come to terms with the loss of a generation and all the questions that tragedy brings.

‘Who is to blame?’

‘Who will speak for us?’

‘How do we move on?’

‘Why did my child have to die?’

At the same time a band of Christians quietly became the servants of the village, working alongside the bereaved and the bewildered, speaking of their faith in God by the way they loved and cared and picked up the most difficult jobs.

One of that band of caring Christians was the man who would become my father-in-law, the Rev Irving Penberthy. He was the Methodist Minister for Aberfan and felt compelled to turn back from a trip to Cardiff after seeing emergency vehicles heading up the valley.

He arrived to the scene of devastation and stayed for four days, supporting bereaved families and working in a chapel-turned-morgue, washing the children’s bodies to give them dignity before their families came to find them. After, with other church leaders, he had the challenge - or maybe privilege - of leading the community in mourning as almost all the burials were held as one communal event.

As the community began to rebuild, he led all sorts of initiatives including encouraging the recording of a vinyl album featuring the surviving children of Aberfan and helping coordinate a support fund which was flooded with gifts from Christians near and far. It eventually funded the building of a youth centre at the chapel.

He has recorded a three-part YouTube series recalling his part in the events of 1966, which you can find here.

The Rev Irving Penberthy being interviewed by BBC Radio Wales on the 50th anniversary of the disaster in 2016.

While there were few organised commemorations of the disaster over the years, the community quietly and consistently came to God in an act of worship each October and in 2016, Rev Penberthy was invited to speak at the service and I wrote a hymn for that occasion.

That 50th anniversary was marked with news reports, newspaper supplements, books and religious gatherings. BBC Radio Wales featured an interview with Rev Penberthy and Songs of Praise had a special programme, which included an interview with him and a rendition of my hymn by the world-famous Treorchy Male Voice Choir. There are clips here.

The lyrics of the hymn are:

God who knows our darkest moments
meets us in our brokenness:
walks beside us as a whisper,
holds our pain in his caress.
God, who leads through shadowed valleys,
where death’s bleakness dims our sight,
speaks a peace beyond our knowing,
floods our anguish with his light.
 
Far beyond our grief’s horizon,
as Creation holds its breath:
Love Divine, revealed in Jesus,
tears apart the chains of death.
Servant son and humble healer,
by your cross and life laid down
you have carried all our suff'ring
and you wear the victor's crown.
 
Lift us up, now, risen Saviour
to the place where mercy plays,
where our broken hopes and heartache
find their healing in your gaze.
This is love, that God has saved us!
This is love, that Christ has died!
We rejoice that love has conquered
and has drawn us to your side.

Gareth Hill. Copyright 2016 © Gareth Hill Publishing/Song Solutions CopyCare, 14 Horsted Square, Uckfield, TN22 1QG www.songsolutions.org

There is also a lovely version of it by my friend, internationally-known Bass-Baritone Jonathan Veira. Here it is.

In my family, October 21 is always a day of reflection. My wife Joy, daughter of the Rev Penberthy, lost friends at Aberfan and we have more than once taken ourselves to the memorial site: the former school now laid out as a quiet garden.

Sitting there now it is hard to imagine the scale of horror and loss but the impact continues to be felt, especially among those who still grieve and who lost so much.