Hers is without doubt one of the most harrowing but tender tales I’ve ever heard. On October 21, 1966, cadet nurse Dianne Thomas answered the decision for assist at Aberfan and was given a job that haunts her nonetheless.
It additionally explains why she didn’t return till as we speak, becoming a member of the King, Queen and Prince of Wales to mark the sixtieth anniversary of one of many darkest days in post-war historical past.
Dianne was despatched to the makeshift mortuary in an area chapel to scrub a few of the our bodies killed by the 150,000-ton wall of mud and slurry from the coal tip that engulfed Pantglas Junior Faculty and neighbouring homes. Of 144 who died, 116 have been youngsters.
If grieving dad and mom have been to need to determine their youngsters, nobody wished their final glimpse to be any extra horrific than want be. Dianne had solely simply turned 18.
‘You did not need the dad and mom to see them with…’ after which she requested me to not repeat the extra graphic particulars. ‘Let’s simply say I washed them with heat soapy water.’
There was one eight-year-old boy she will always remember. ‘I used to be going to be the final individual to carry him like his Mam had held him. So I held him in my arms and began singing to him. ‘Hey, diddle, diddle…’.’ It was onerous sufficient to take heed to this story, how a lot tougher it was for her to retell it.
‘After which I put my hand in his pocket,’ Dianne went on. ‘There was his spelling e book. And he had simply scored eight out of ten in his check. And I bear in mind pondering that if I might solely discover his Mam, it’d supply her the tiniest consolation if I might inform her that.’
Within the mayhem, she by no means realized his title. She was engaged on one facet of a sheet within the emergency mortuary. On the opposite, the chief mortician was getting ready our bodies for brand new coffins ‘piled flooring to ceiling’.
Dianne Thomas, then a cadet nurse, has revealed her trauma of working in a makeshift mortuary after the catastrophe struck the close-knit coal mining village of Aberfan
On October 21, 1966, 144 individuals died after a coal tip collapsed on Pantglas Junior Faculty and Moy Highway in Aberfan
King Charles and Queen Camilla with Mair Morgan, the final surviving instructor from Pantglas Junior Faculty, paying their respects
Prince William, lays a wreath at Aberfan Memorial Backyard, the place survivors, bereaved dad and mom and members of the group additionally paid tribute on Wednesday
The very scent of contemporary pine, stated Dianne, was nonetheless sufficient to set off flashbacks. ‘And every time I hear ‘Hey, diddle, diddle’, I properly up,’ she added. From that day, she misplaced her ambition to be a nurse and pursued a profession in baby safety, turning into a social employee and latterly a faculties inspector.
Such have been the recollections on Wednesday. The King, who has been to Aberfan many occasions and has solid a long-standing friendship with a bereavement group referred to as the Aberfan Wives, was by no means going to overlook this. He was right here in 2016 for the fiftieth, as Prince of Wales, representing the Queen.
In 1966, she got here eight days after the catastrophe and broke down within the house of a mom who misplaced two youngsters. She would return to this one tiny Welsh village extra typically than some main cities.
On Wednesday, the King was joined by Queen Camilla and Prince William. All laid floral tributes on the Backyard of Remembrance on the positioning of the varsity earlier than a walkabout to the group centre.
This stage of royal illustration is often reserved for main state events. However then it is onerous to consider a date that’s seared into the Welsh collective reminiscence as deeply as this one. Each stage of the Welsh state, from First Minister down, was on parade.
The day started with a non-public ceremony up on the steep cemetery the place the youngsters lie facet by facet. It was a wealthy carpet of contemporary flowers. Desperately poignant was the wording on a number of graves: ‘Collectively finally’. Sixty years on, many bereft dad and mom have died – and virtually all have chosen to be interred alongside the son or daughter who by no means returned. In some instances it was each.
They embody Cliff and Iris Minett who misplaced Marylyn, ten, and Carl, seven, that day. ‘I did have a little bit of a breakdown this morning on the cemetery,’ stated their surviving baby, Gaynor Madgwick. ‘I usually attempt to comprise myself, however that minute’s silence received to me. My father and my mom and my brother and my sister, they’re all collectively. I could not breathe.’
She recalled how her little brother hated going to high school. ‘Mum solely managed to get Carl there that day as a result of it was about to be half time period and she or he instructed him he’d be house by midday. She at all times needed to stay with that guilt.’
The occasion haunted late Queen Elizabeth II, who waited eight days earlier than visiting the coal mining village close to Merthyr Tydfil – a transfer described as the most important remorse of her complete reign
The final baby to be discovered, Jeff Edwards, then eight survived on account of a small pocket of air that allowed him to breathe and his blond hair which was noticed by rescuers among the many rubble
King Charles III (pictured with Jeff Edwards OBE) arrives at Aberfan and Merthyr Vale Neighborhood Centre
Gaynor solely escaped as a result of she was shielded by a radiator. She has devoted a lot of her life to counselling others. Go to St Fagans Nationwide Museum of Historical past and you may see a few of the issues she has donated for posterity, together with Carl’s soccer, Marylyn’s brooch and her personal handwritten childhood account of the catastrophe, referred to as A Unhappy Story.
On Wednesday, she was in control of escorting Queen Camilla at the local people centre.
Prince William joined Denise Morgan, who misplaced her 11-year-old sister, Annette. ‘We did every part collectively,’ she instructed me. ‘We even slept in the identical mattress.’ She remembers her father coming back from the morgue, clutching Annette’s purse and saying she regarded ‘so peaceable – as if she was sleeping’.
That’s exactly why the fragile work of Dianne Thomas and her colleagues was so necessary.
Doing the introductions for the King was Jeff Edwards, the last child to be pulled from the wreckage – simply after 11am. ‘From our darkest hour,’ he instructed the monarch in his speech of welcome, ‘to these days, you could have remembered us, you could have stood with us.’
The King instructed them: ‘Now we have heard tales of heartbreak, but additionally of heroism. Now we have heard of essentially the most agonising grief but additionally of essentially the most inspiring grace. Hearts removed from this valley will ache with yours.’
He then met individuals like David Wilson, who at 23 drove seven nurses up from Port Talbot in his roofer’s van. He promptly joined miners digging into the quagmire solely to unearth the physique of a person trapped below a boulder.
Right here, too, was Mair Morgan, 85, the final surviving instructor. She managed to get all the youngsters in her reception class, on the far facet of the varsity, out safely. She stayed right here for the remainder of her profession, rebuilding a shell-shocked college from a fleet of caravans.
A toddler is carried by a policeman after being pulled from the wreckage following the coal tip collapse
![A national tribunal found the 'blame for the disaster rest[ed] upon the National Coal Board' due to a failure to manage piles of waste safely. No one was prosecuted or even demoted](https://i.dailymail.com/1s/2026/10/21/23/111982119-16228241-A_national_tribunal_found_the_blame_for_the_disaster_rest_ed_upo-a-3_1792622144244.jpg)
A nationwide tribunal discovered the ‘blame for the catastrophe relaxation[ed] upon the Nationwide Coal Board’ on account of a failure to handle piles of waste safely. Nobody was prosecuted and even demoted
The royal occasion have been serenaded by the Ynysowen Male Voice Choir, arrange within the aftermath as a type of remedy for grieving menfolk. They embody Ray Lee, who continued to cling on to hope till 10pm that dreadful evening when he recognized his solely baby, Anne, within the Bethania Chapel. ‘I prefer to suppose I am singing to her after we sing,’ he stated.
Because the royal convoy drove away and the aged witnesses to the unimaginable drifted house, I heard a fascinating sound from the memorial backyard. For it’s also now house to a playground.
Right here have been the identical completely satisfied shrieks you may need heard earlier than 9.13am on October 21, 1966. Even in Aberfan, life goes on.
READ MORE
