We will start proceedings with a commemoration of the tragic event that occurred 50 years ago in Aberfan, on 21 October 1966, when 144 people were killed, 116 of them children. Members will have heard the contributions of our guests from Aberfan, who joined us in the Assembly’s memorial event earlier, and who join us in the public gallery. On behalf of all Members, I thank you for joining us today, and for participating in such a special tribute.

Mae’r Senedd yn llwyfan cenedlaethol er mwyn cydnabod stori ein cenedl. Mae’n bwysig iddi chwarae ei rhan wrth adlewyrchu ein hysbryd, ein gorffennol, presennol, a’n dyfodol. Mae gwydnwch cymuned Aberfan yn wyneb trallod yn dyst i allu gobaith i orchfygu, hyd yn oed mewn trychineb. Rwy’n gwahodd Dawn Bowden i siarad ar ran cymuned Aberfan, a’i hetholaeth, Merthyr Tudful a Rhymni. Dawn Bowden.

Diolch, Lywydd. Nine-fifteen a.m., Friday 21 October 1966—the terrible events visited on Aberfan that day reverberated around the world. On the last day of the school term, one small mining village lost 116 children and 28 adults. Nothing would ever be the same for Aberfan, for Wales, for the world. Just one day later, just one hour earlier, things would have been so different.

Aberfan was the first major disaster seen by the world through the lens of a television camera, and the impact was immediate. The sight of endless streams of miners, volunteers, emergency workers and the military fighting tirelessly to find survivors, and recover those who perished, is emblazoned in the memories of anyone who was around at that time. Despite these heroic efforts, no-one was found alive after 11 a.m.

As a small child, not living in Aberfan, or even in Wales, at that time, this was the first news story that I have a memory of. Such was its impact that the horror of what happened on that day has stayed with me all of my life, as I recall so vividly my parents thanking God that it wasn’t me or my brother who had gone to school that day never to come home. Their sorrow poured out for people who they didn’t know and they would never meet, but, as young parents themselves, these were people with whom they had complete empathy. At that time, everyone felt the pain of Aberfan.

It was, of course, the day that the community of Aberfan changed forever. Survivors would never know the normality of life without tragedy. Families lost sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, parents and grandparents—lives that were torn apart under the mountain of black sludge. The guilt of survivors who lived when their friends perished, the guilt of parents whose children survived when many were left childless, the parents of children lost, unable to visit their graves, or alter a child’s bedroom, teachers killed doing their job—the unspoken trauma that we know stays with so many even now.

No-one was unaffected by those terrible events, but the community gave each other comfort and strength to come through it. As we commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the disaster, it gives us all time to reflect on lives lost, families broken, survivors tormented. But it also allows us to reflect on a community’s resilience and the courage shown in the face of the most terrible of tragedies.

What happened that day shows us that the price of coal, in a place whose only reason for existence was to dig for it, was too great a price for any community to pay. But coal had also created these mining communities, whose values of solidarity, comradeship and community spirit were rarely seen elsewhere. That spirit has lived on well after the last coal was cut in Merthyr Vale, and that spirit has been such a credit to the people of Aberfan, enabling them to rebuild their lives and their community, and to look forward with courage, dignity and hope.

That dignity has been so apparent as the people of Aberfan have come together to make arrangements to mark this anniversary, and I pay tribute to all of you, not just this year, but every day of every year, for everything you do for each other, and for the memory of those who were lost. I’ve worked with many of you in the recent months and weeks while we’ve been discussing these events, and it has been my privilege to get to know you and to now call you my friends.

While it’s difficult to talk about positives when contemplating the scale of suffering visited on this small mining community, there is perhaps some comfort in recognising that it did result in the eventual removal of all coal tips across the country, ensuring that there could never be a repeat of the Aberfan disaster. It led to improvements in health and safety at work, particularly in heavy industry, and resulted in the effect of the experiences of people in Aberfan finally being recognised as the medical condition of post–traumatic stress disorder, so that those who needed it could receive treatment for the traumas that they suffered. So, while these anniversary commemorations will undoubtedly bring back terrible memories for many, it is also a time for the whole country to come together to support Aberfan and let them know that those lost will never be forgotten. This community will grow and become stronger as each year passes and as new generations build their futures and become their new hope.

In closing, I must acknowledge that whatever sympathy and empathy we express, only those directly involved can know the true impacts of the effects of 21 October 1966. But we, as the National Assembly for Wales, on behalf of the people of Wales, and so many people beyond, can hope that our acts of commemoration will offer some continuing support and comfort to the community of Aberfan.

I call on the First Minister, Carwyn Jones.

Llywydd, at 9.15 a.m. on 21 October 1966, Wales changed forever. When the Merthyr Vale No. 7 tip slid through the mist of the morning in a 40-foot wave and engulfed Pantglas junior school and the surrounding buildings, it had a profound effect on the community, of course, but also on the wider world. My mother was a young schoolteacher, pregnant with me, when she first heard the news from Aberfan. It was break time in the junior school where she was teaching. The head came in and said, ‘A school in Merthyr has collapsed. We don’t know if anyone’s hurt.’ And that’s all they knew at that time. And then the full story came out during the course of the day.

It affected her. Over the years, I heard her talk of Aberfan. I heard her talk of teachers who had been found buried with their arms around children trying to protect them against the deluge, and when my own children were young, we went to Big Pit mining museum, and there on display are newspaper front pages describing the disaster, and she was deeply affected then. For although she wasn’t from Aberfan, she was from a small mining village and she knew what the cost would be to the community.

Men knew the risks of working underground. They knew the risks of a fall. They feared being engulfed by blackdamp. They knew the explosive power of firedamp. They knew about the risk of injury underground. The lamp rooms were full of men who bore testament to that. Many of us in our families saw the effect of the dust on the lungs of those who worked underground—pneumoconiosis and emphysema taking the lives of those as they aged prematurely and were taken so young. They knew the price of coal was high, but they didn’t realise that the price would be so extortionate, because who would have thought that coal could take the lives of children so suddenly, and above the ground?

We can’t share the experience of the community of Aberfan and those who lost so much. We can’t share their grief because their grief is different. Their grief has been, and still is, played out in the full glare of the public spotlight. And this week will be difficult. Friday will be hugely difficult for so many families. But I hope I speak for all Members in this Chamber when I say that today we stand in solidarity with the people of Aberfan. We offer them support and I hope some comfort as they deal with the memories of that day when winter darkness came early to the community of Aberfan.

The events of 21 October 1966 resonate right across Wales. Many of our communities were created as a result of the rich seam of coal beneath our feet. Coal brought employment, it brought opportunities, it gave us infrastructure, but it did also extract a very heavy price. Many of us grew up with a coal tip perched upon the mountains above us. What happened in Aberfan could have happened almost anywhere that had a coal mine. Many of us grew up in very close-knit communities where you looked out for your neighbours and where your neighbours looked out for you. And it’s because of these links that we feel such a strong sense of solidarity with the people of Aberfan.

To those closest to the event, you must know that you have our support, you have our sympathy, you have our solidarity and you have our respect. It’s incumbent upon all of us and the generations that follow to ensure that we continue to remember what happened that day in Aberfan 50 years ago and today we will ensure that Wales will remember.

The harrowing images of the Aberfan disaster shed some light on the unimaginable scenes that the community of Aberfan, Wales and the world had to endure 50 years ago. This tragedy, which devastatedly consumed 20 houses and the village school, took the lives of 28 adults and 116 children. The children had just returned to their classes after singing ‘All things bright and beautiful’ at their assembly. Today, we remember those adults and children who lost their lives so tragically, but we must also reflect on the bravery of the survivors and of the bereaved. Having read the stories of the survivors who have now felt able to break the haunting silence and share their experiences of that day, I am awed by the formidable courage and community spirit with which the people of Aberfan have faced the future in the aftermath of such heartbreak and devastation. The personal accounts given by those who were there on the day, like that of Karen Thomas, who along with four other children were saved by their school dinner lady, Nansi Williams, who so selflessly sacrificed her own life to save the young children in her care, reveals the extraordinary fortitude which is grounded in the community of Aberfan.

From those haunting black and white images, we are able to see the immense blackness that engulfed Aberfan on that day. But despite the horrors endured, the community did not succumb to the darkness, instead choosing to tirelessly dig for light. It is with feelings of the utmost reverence and compassion that we remember.

Aberfan: 50 years ago today, an obscure pit village barely known beyond its physical horizons, but within 48 hours known throughout the world for the dreadful cataclysm that engulfed the village school and rendered its name immortal. The tip slide not only crushed the bodies of 116 children and 28 adults but temporarily crushed the heart of our nation too and it touches yet the heart of generations then unborn.

I remember Friday 21 October 1966 very vividly. It was half term. My parents, my sister and I had crossed the newly built Severn bridge to stay for a few days with my father’s aunt and uncle near Bath. In those days there was no rolling 24-hour tv news, no mobile phones—my relatives had no phone at all. We heard the news on what we then called the ‘wireless’. My father was the National Coal Board chief engineer in west Wales and he went out to the village red phone box to get a first-hand account of what was happening. Our holiday was abruptly cut short. We packed our bags immediately, as he rushed to help in the rescue operation.

I grew up in a vanished world of coal tips and pithead winding gear. Wales has seen many mining disasters, and some like Senghennydd in 1913 and Gresford in 1934 with even greater loss of life, but Aberfan was something else. Danger was endemic in a deep mine, but this disaster on the surface seemed even more a sacrifice of innocence.

Looking back now at the images of the black and white world that we then lived in, what strikes me most is the nobility on the faces of the bereaved and the stoic, silent sadness of their grief. This day, we remember not ony those who died, but those who survived: their familes, their friends and neighbours.

‘Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.’

Thank you all for your contributions. It is right that Wales’s Parliament pays its respect on the fiftieth anniversary of this tragedy. We are conscious that, for the community of Aberfan, it is a tragedy that you live with day in and day out. However, we commend the community for facing the future with strength and resilience. I now ask the National Assembly and the public gallery to rise to remember those 144 men, women and children, who, on that morning of 21 October 1966, had their future taken away from them.

Assembly Members stood for a minute’s silence.

Thank you.