What major historical events do you remember?
Last time I mentioned the assassination of JFK. I’ve also talked about watching the Apollo Spacecraft appearing around the moon in 1969, alongside my Nan, who commented that the Wright Brothers had only taken the first flight in their aeroplane three years before she was born, and now she was watching a spaceship with her granddaughter.
She also remembered the sinking of the Titanic.
But this week the one thing that must be mentioned is the heartbreaking Aberfan disaster.
Aberfan: Never forgotten
I want to go there one day and take some flowers.
If you don’t know of it, a coal slag heap above a town in Wales suddenly shifted, plummeted downhill at high speed, and buried parts of a village, the most devastating of all was a school.
I was a similar age to those children. I can never forget them, their families, or the images.
The late Queen got into trouble over that one, she refused to go to Aberfan because she felt that the media who followed her would be intrusive at such a time.
When she was persuaded to go she learned how comforting her presence could be, and from then on she was always where she was needed, offering comfort.
She also visited Aberfan regularly in future years, often stopping off on the way to and from events, and leaving flowers. Privately and respectfully as she wanted to be.
One of the rescuers said that she did the right thing as it would have been a distraction. They were still hoping to find children alive, or rescue their little bodies. They would have had to stop. At that time you would not have filmed bodies being discovered and certainly not children.
Our now King went too. As we came to know he always would.
So that’s today’s memory in respectful tribute to an unimaginable disaster that will always be in my memory.
No words are adequate.
Deb xx
Deb Hawken - Amorah 