Aberfan - October 21 1966

So a couple of years ago I was riding on a train through a beautiful Welsh valley, on my way to Tenby and the coast of Wales for a holiday, and I looked up and saw the regular pastoral: rolling green hills, sheep dotting everything, a small house, a small cemetary. I sighed, lost in the travel brochure-ness of it all. The cemetary had odd headstones - rows and rows of what looked from a distance like popsicle sticks.

The woman sitting next to me leaned into my shoulder and whispered, "Aberfan."

I suddenly noticed the entire car had grown silent, everyone turning to stare at the little rows of white. If I were prone to romanticism and fancy, I do believe the sky grew darker . . .

So the train turned out of that valley and I asked the woman, "Aberfan?"

So she told me the story of the day the slag heap - the coal waste - slid down the hill and buried the elementary school. She told me about how parents dug and dug and dug, trying to unbury their little children. She told me how the children that survived were treated as royalty, told me how the grief of the town seeped through the entire valley, much like the rain through the slag.

The story tore my heart apart. I can't ever let it go. I've written a story, a play, a poem, and the beginnings of a novel about it.

My pal Sheila reminded me of the anniversary today. And urged me to post the poem. Thanks, bachgen. Someday we'll meet in the annwyl bryn, prydferth Cymru. 

( The Price of Coal )

Here's the BBC link today: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/5406352.stm