Aberfan

[happy_renting]

I was only 9 when this disaster happened. I put up a home-made poster at my school to organise a collection. We raised about £13 for the victims. It seemed like a lot of money at the time.

The National Coal Board was criminally culpable, knowing that the spoil tips were dangerous. No-one from the NCB was penalised.

What I did not know until today is that something was kept secret for 30 years, under the 30 year rule. It became news in 1997 but I didn't hear about it, until now.

Basically, the Labour government raided the charity fund, taking about 10% of it, £150,000, to pay the National Coal board to clear up the dangerous spoil tips.

So instead of the Government /NCB paying for the clear-up, and compensating victims, they stole the charity money meant for the victims and used it as Government money.

In 1997, when this became public knowledge, the Blair Labour Government repaid the £150,000. Without interest. And without allowing for 30 years of inflation.

Recalling how I felt as a child, making my modest effort to make a difference, and learning now what Labour did with the money, I feel sick in my stomach.

F*****g f******g c***s.

[One-percent]

6 minutes ago, happy_renting said:

I was only 9 when this disaster happened. I put up a home-made poster at my school to organise a collection. We raised about £13 for the victims. It seemed like a lot of money at the time.

The National Coal Board was criminally culpable, knowing that the spoil tips were dangerous. No-one from the NCB was penalised.

What I did not know until today is that something was kept secret for 30 years, under the 30 year rule. It became news in 1997 but I didn't hear about it, until now.

Basically, the Labour government raided the charity fund, taking about 10% of it, £150,000, to pay the National Coal board to clear up the dangerous spoil tips.

So instead of the Government /NCB paying for the clear-up, and compensating victims, they stole the charity money meant for the victims and used it as Government money.

In 1997, when this became public knowledge, the Blair Labour Government repaid the £150,000. Without interest. And without allowing for 30 years of inflation.

Recalling how I felt as a child, making my modest effort to make a difference, and learning now what Labour did with the money, I feel sick in my stomach.

F*****g f******g c***s.

Good on you for doing that. It would be a good amount of money in those days and collected by and from kids. 

Just goes to show how self serving, corrupt and cynical politicians of whatever hue were and still are. Shame on them

[The Masked Tulip]

They're only Welsh - don't matter. Isn't that the mentality amongst many?

Wales has many people who would be at home in Animal Farm. George Thomas - Lord Tonypandy - was the Napoleon of the Welsh Farm for so many years.

Well done you for organising a collection.

[One-percent]

Think the view is they are only working class plebs. If the slag heap had ended up on some rich Welsh landowners land, you can bet that it would have been cleared on the taxpayer and probably been replaced with duck houses as recompense 

[happy_renting]

A particular irony is that Labour grew out of the Trade Union movement, in which miner's unions were prominent. During the miner's strike and throughout the 20th century, Labour has presented itself as the party representing miners and their like.

Read the Wiki and see how the Labour established completely screwed over the survivors and families of the Aberfan disaster. And why.

[One-percent]

Sadly, I used to believe their narrative. 

 

Ive changed my position and in light of the coming revolution, I've ordered this

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Silverline-GT24-Hay-Fork-1600/dp/B000LFYNV6/ref=sr_1_1?s=diy&ie=UTF8&qid=1476999068&sr=1-1&keywords=pitchfork+garden+tool

[The Masked Tulip]

[One-percent]

2 minutes ago, The Masked Tulip said:

 very good.

is that the welsh off toset fire to English second homes? 

[The Masked Tulip]

14 minutes ago, One-percent said:

 very good.

is that the welsh off toset fire to English second homes? 

So many from England have moved to Wales in recent years - as always, when England gets invaded the English run to Wales. I am surrounded by more English than Welsh where I live.

[stormymonday_2011]

1 hour ago, happy_renting said:

I was only 9 when this disaster happened. I put up a home-made poster at my school to organise a collection. We raised about £13 for the victims. It seemed like a lot of money at the time.

The National Coal Board was criminally culpable, knowing that the spoil tips were dangerous. No-one from the NCB was penalised.

What I did not know until today is that something was kept secret for 30 years, under the 30 year rule. It became news in 1997 but I didn't hear about it, until now.

Basically, the Labour government raided the charity fund, taking about 10% of it, £150,000, to pay the National Coal board to clear up the dangerous spoil tips.

So instead of the Government /NCB paying for the clear-up, and compensating victims, they stole the charity money meant for the victims and used it as Government money.

In 1997, when this became public knowledge, the Blair Labour Government repaid the £150,000. Without interest. And without allowing for 30 years of inflation.

Recalling how I felt as a child, making my modest effort to make a difference, and learning now what Labour did with the money, I feel sick in my stomach.

F*****g f******g c***s.

I  was 9 in 1966 as well. The same age as many of those who died. It was a wet miserable autumn as I recall which washed away the optimism of the summer of that year and culminated in the Aberfan tragedy. The NCB knew all about the risks from the coal tailing tips towering over the village but chose to do nothing. The subsequent enquiry did identify the causes of the tragedy but in true British style no one senior was ever held accountable and to add insult to injury the NCB were allowed shamefully to loot the disaster relief fund set up for the victims. As a kid I visited  this part of south Wales a few times as my grandfather came from a mining community in the valleys which looked not unsimilar to Aberfan. He had worked in the pits as a youngster and members of his family were still working in the mines in the1960s. I remember those towering black tips well and the fact the very air smelled of coal. As a boy from rural Surrey going there was an object lesson that not all parts of the UK were green and pleasant and that some people led pretty tough lives.  All part of a lost British industrial world that most people under 40 have never experienced. Watching the documentary brought back all those images and that melancholy day when that black tide brought death to all those Welsh families. While I know there have been bigger disasters experienced in my lifetime and some with more deaths I found those old black and white TV pictures and the interviews in the recent documentaries about Aberfan particularly poignant

[stormymonday_2011]

1 hour ago, happy_renting said:

A particular irony is that Labour grew out of the Trade Union movement, in which miner's unions were prominent. During the miner's strike and throughout the 20th century, Labour has presented itself as the party representing miners and their like.

Read the Wiki and see how the Labour established completely screwed over the survivors and families of the Aberfan disaster. And why.

The two great lies in British politics are that the Labour Party care about the workers and that the Tory Party are the friends of the small businessman.

[The Masked Tulip]

27 minutes ago, stormymonday_2011 said:

The two great lies in British politics are that Labour Party care about the workers and that the Tory Party are the friends of the small businessman.

Very true.

[man o' the year]

1 hour ago, The Masked Tulip said:

So many from England have moved to Wales in recent years - as always, when England gets invaded the English run to Wales. I am surrounded by more English than Welsh where I live.

"Ugly lovely town" or "pretty shitty city."

As for Abervan I was at uni with a survivor at Swansea. Talking to him made me realise that it was only my good luck that meant I was in school in a Notts mining village rather than involved in such a tragic event. I have visited Abervan and recommend it to bring home the reality, especially the graveyard on the opposite side of the valley from the memorial garden where the school was.

[StainlessSteelCat]

We had a Welsh teacher at my school - and we covered Aberfan when I was around 9 (so early 80s) on the anniversary.  I was deeply affected at the time and still find it upsetting. I live in Wales  near sizeable piles of slate waste and the public footpaths running alongside them are occasionally closed due to suspected stability problems after heavy rain so easy to understand the problem. 

Aberfan is one of those disasters which should never be forgotten - and not least because of the disgusting behaviour by the authorities afterwards. I've grown more cynical about this now - because it seems to be a regular historical pattern and we'd be naive to think it doesn't still occur. 

[winkie]

A terrible tragedy, never to be forgotten, affected all who lived in that close community...I know my mother was deeply disturbed by it. Something that should and could have been avoided..... thinking of the people of Aberfan at this time. 

[The Knimbies who say No]

Yes, it does rather expose the lie that somehow politicians were more honourable back in the day. Just less likely to be caught, in my view. Dunno what sort of sociopath would sanction the looting of the fund, but hopefully this sort of behaviour is more likely to be uncovered. The 1997 repayment was a cheap shot.

[Turned Out Nice Again]

I also was 8-9 when it happened. It's one of my earliest childhood memories of a public event.

[Freeholder]

The decision to bill the disaster fund for the clean up was taken at a small meeting of senior government ministers. Harold Wilson, the PM, expressed the view that they might as well give Robens what he wanted because people in the area would vote Labour whatever they did.

[Freeholder]

16 minutes ago, The Knimbies who say No said:

Yes, it does rather expose the lie that somehow politicians were more honourable back in the day. Just less likely to be caught, in my view. Dunno what sort of sociopath would sanction the looting of the fund, but hopefully this sort of behaviour is more likely to be uncovered. The 1997 repayment was a cheap shot.

£150,000 in 1966 would have been about £1,500,000 in 1997 money.  

[dougless]

I was 12 at the time and like the OP, a friend and I decided to go round our locality collecting money for the disaster funds. Once we had about £8-10 we realised we had no idea how to get the money to the people affected so presented it to our Head Teacher. I think it one of the few times I was mentioned in a School assembly in a positive way.  I was old enough at the time to be aware of the duplicity and wiggling going on regarding the causes and who was to blame; but that came later.

[SarahBell]

I wasn't born when it happened, but born a few years later on the anniversary. I read about it in an encyclopedia of events that happened on my birthday. Has always depressed me that such a terrible thing happened to those children - school is supposed to be a safe place. 

[The Masked Tulip]

So much for the United Kingdom - minute of silence in Wales. No where else. BBC News barely covered it. Fivelive is talking about it now so good for them. Ditto Sky News but this Victoria Derbyshire programme - shame on her.

[The Masked Tulip]

[SarahBell]

1 minute ago, The Masked Tulip said:

So much for the United Kingdom - minute of silence in Wales. No where else. BBC News barely covered it. Fivelive is talking about it now so good for them. Ditto Sky News but this Victoria Derbyshire programme - shame on her.

It started over a week ago with them talking about the concert. They had the concert the other day. I don't like it when they spend weeks remembering things before the date. 

[The Masked Tulip]

Dear Mummy,

You probably noticed that I was in Aberfan this weekend. But you will have no possible idea of what hell it was. No newspaper could ever paint a picture terrible enough.

The first news reached the office at 11am, just that 50 children were trapped. I caught the midday train and met many other reporters from various newspapers also on it...

 

https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2016/oct/20/aberfan-a-reporters-letter-home-reveals-the-true-horror-of-the-tragedy?CMP=twt_gu