Trigger warning: This exhibit discusses a historical disaster where people, including children, lost their lives. 

The date was Friday the 21st of October, 1966.

My grandfather was driving to work at a chemicals factory in Hereford – on the border of England and Wales. As he started work that day, the radio in his office began to break the news about what had happened, just 40 miles away, in the Welsh mining village of Aberfan. 

Shortly after 9am, on the top of the hillside, one of the towering coal waste tips collapsed. Tens of thousands of tonnes of mud and debris careered down the hillside, into the village. It destroyed Pantglas Junior School, a row of houses, and part of a neighbouring secondary school.

The avalanche of waste hit the school at precisely 9.13 am. A clock, recovered from the site of the landslide, ticked for the final time. 

My grandfather and his colleagues immediately jumped into their cars to make the one hour drive across to Aberfan so they could help dig people out. They arrived in the village only to be turned away by local police. So many had arrived to help, that they couldn’t allow any more people in. 

Villagers, volunteers, miners from the local area and emergency services furiously dug to try and recover as many survivors as possible. The last child, brought out alive from under the mud, was found at 11.00 am. 

Bodies continued to be found days later, and in total, 144 lives were lost. 116 of those were children, mostly between the ages of seven and 10. They died in their classrooms, on the last day of school before the half term holiday.

Days of rain had caused the tip to collapse. But it was a tragedy which was warned about and could have been avoided. 

The National Coal Board was responsible for ensuring the safety of the tips. There had been two similar collapses (with less disastrous consequences) in the local area, in the years before. The inquiry that followed reported that the minutes from a local council meeting showed there had previously been concerns about the tip. 

An engineer from the local council had written to the National Coal Board and the letter header was: ‘Danger from the coal slurry at the rear of Pantglas School’. The letter was ignored.

This disaster is another, in a long line of examples, of how corporate greed – at its worst – can cost the lives of innocent men, women and children. But this wasn’t the only scandal in the story… more on that later. 

On the same day that the tragedy unfolded, the Mayor of the town – Stanley Davies – set up the Aberfan Disaster Memorial Fund. Motivated to ensure that the village, and those who lost loved ones got the help they needed, Mayor Davies set up the fund quickly within the local council. 

Countless volunteers gave up their time to help process the thousands of donations that poured in. Gifts came in from across the UK, particularly from mining areas where people understood that this tragedy could have happened in their village – it could have been their children’s school. 

A letter from South Shields Borough Council accompanied their donation, a £1,500 cheque. It stated their ‘heartfelt sympathy’, referencing that ‘as an area reliant on mining and fishing, they’d also suffered losses associated with their industries’ and they ‘grieved with the Aberfan community’.

In the weeks that followed, people and communities continued to donate to the fund. A number of fundraising events took place including football matches, gala dinners and other more obscure events. For example, a car was pulled 19 miles by a group of men walking from Coventry to Stratford. They collected money along the way.

Donors even included infamous gangsters, the Cray twins, who donated £100 each – the largest single amount given by any individuals to the appeal. The fund received about 90,000 contributions from around the world, totalling £1.6 million by the time it closed in January 1967. That would be equivalent to £20 million today.  It was crowdfunding in its purest sense. 

In the months that followed, the anger from the community was not limited to the incompetence of the National Coal Board and their failure to protect the school from the dangers of the tip – which was known to be unsafe. The use of the money raised was also subject to controversy. 

There were failures from the Charity Commission, who chose not to intervene when authorities in charge of the funds chose to cover the cost of funerals but would not award any funds raised directly to grieving families. This was despite protestations from the community. The Charity Commission chose not to act when – unbelievably – the National Coal Board took £150,000 from the fund and used it to remove the remaining coal tips that loomed over Aberfan. It was a cost they should have borne, given that it was their responsibility and their negligence that caused the disaster in the first place. It was not until 1997 that the Government repaid that £150,000 to the fund. 

The funds raised were eventually transferred into a trust that still exists to this day. The deed of the charity allowed it to support those who had been directly affected and also provide for the wider community. In the months and years after, the charity donated money to bereaved families, paid for the repairs to houses, provided holidays for villagers, and built a community hall. It also established and still maintains a cemetery and memorial garden on the same hillside where the school once stood. 

My grandfather did return to Aberfan – and took the photo below. 

This event is titled I Wish I’d Thought of That, and you might be wondering why I chose Aberfan, such a difficult and heavy topic to talk about today. Learning more about Aberfan has meant: 

• I could talk about the fundraising appeal that united people from all walks of life – gangsters, footballers, politicians, mining communities. 
• I could talk about the amazing speed in which Mayor Stanley Davies reacted, to set up the fund. 
• I could talk about the power of the crowd and when thousands of people give what they can, it creates a big impact. 
• I could talk about how consistently generous Britain is and that, when we need to and when we’re asked to step up, we do. We’re there for those who need our help. 

But really there are two main reasons why I chose to share this with you today.

To remember the 144 who tragically and needlessly lost their lives. Maybe it’s because it’s tucked away in a Welsh valley, maybe it’s because it was so long ago. But I don’t think enough people know about what happened at Aberfan. 

I think it acts a reminder for us as fundraisers in the sector. It’s a reminder for us to continue being brave. A book written by one of the survivors of Aberfan, lays the blames for the disaster on the act of cowardice. And the opposite of cowardice is, of course, bravery. 

Aberfan is one of many examples of where our institutions, those gifted with the power, have failed us. Either through incompetence or worse, through ignorance. And it’s us, our communities, that have paid the ultimate price: Hillsborough, infected blood, the postmaster’s scandal, Windrush, Grenfell, the list goes on. And it’s us in this sector that should be the ones to agitate, challenge and respond when our communities face these injustices. 

When those in power show that moral cowardice. When they choose not to look, not to report, not to question – we should be the ones that hold them to account. If not us, then who?

Let’s never forget to be brave. And let’s never forget Aberfan. 

IMAGES: © All images courtesy of Alex Day or as credited above. 

Alex Day at IWITOT 2024: If you’d like to watch Alex Day’s seven-minute presentation on Aberfan, please click the image below.