Aberfan - Sorrow and the Stirring of New Life
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- Опубліковано 26 гру 2024
- Recollections of Life Magazine Photographer I.C. Rapoport on the Aberfan tragedy, six weeks in a community of survivors.
CREDITS:
Blue Pencil: Mary Rapoport
Editorial Layout: I.C. Rapoport
Sound Recording and Music: Caleb Rapoport
Post Production and Editing: Benjamin Rapoport
Producer: Suzanne Grover
Original Music: "It's Not Unusual..." Performed by Tom Jones, Written by Les Reed & Gordon Mills, DECCA Records 1965
Thanks to Suzanne Grover and David Davies for inspiring this project.
SPONSORS:
Ffos-y-fran Community Benefit Fund, in association with Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council
The North Glamorgan Lodge 4055
PUBLISHING:
"Stirrings of New Life Under the Menacing Coal Tip of ABERFAN"
LIFE Magazine (Jan 6, 1967)
"Fear, Sorrow and a Stirring of the Human Spirit ABERFAN"
LIFE International (Feb 6, 1967)
"ABERFAN: The Days After"
I.C. Rapoport, Parthian Books, Cardigan, Wales (2005)
Some photos first published in Jan/Feb 1967. Many photos where exhibited at the National Library of Wales prior to this film.
The Images in this presentation are Copyrighted by I.C. Rapoport (2016)
www.icrapoport.com
I was 7, it was my dad's birthday. I still remember the tears in his eyes and we were watching it on our new TV 100miles away. I had to pay a visit to the cemetery a few years ago and choked when I saw parents now buried with their children..
I lived in a mining village about 10 miles from Aberfan, my father was a miner underground when the tip slid. As soon as the news reached our pit the men were brought up and loaded into busses and told to wait, This was about 10 in the morning, about 3/4 of an hour after the tip had gone, again they were told to wait as there were too many people at Aberfan and more were coming in all of the time. My father spent 12 hours in the bus waiting for a call that didn't come. Experienced miners sitting on a bus when 100s of well meaning but clueless people without a clue of working with coal struggling . I'm not having a go at any of those well meaning people but getting experienced miners to Aberfan as quickly as they could would have been better. R I P Aberfan
I am from Cardiff, l came to live in kibbutz in Israel in 1965. I shall never forget the day we heard about it on the radio. No TV then. Impossible to imagine the heartbreak
I remember my father coming home heart broken because he'd been down to Aberfan to help dig the children out, And for me i was in school myself when we heard the news and one of teachers brother was killed there, god bless all who suffered because it is something i will never forget and i am 66 now.
I was 9 years old when it happened. I remember my mum packing a bag to go To Wales as we lived in Berkshire. I didn’t quite understand what was going on. My dad said mum will be home soon. She was in Wales for about three weeks. She came home and hug us all, but I still remember her crying at night she was born there.
I'm so sorry.
This tribute to all the little children mothers and fathers made me cry so helpless was the feeling all I can say is sorry
This is the best ive ever seen describing this dreadful ever. Thank you muchly for doing it Justice.
Done with empathy, i am welsh and this happened a few miles from my home i remember it so well, i was in school that day and wecwere called into our assembley hall to be informed of the disaster and told to pray for the children , still haunts me today.
Gentle hug.
A brilliant record of a terrible moment in history, sensitively told and magnificently documenting the human aspect of this tragedy. This documentary deserves an award.
There have been many programmes on the disaster, but none as powerful as this. Outstanding piece of work.
The most poignant and touching documentary of the Aberfan disaster. Photojournalism of the absolute highest order. A great shame that such professional journalism seems to no longer exist in everyday life. Thank you.
53 years after the Aberfan disaster and this beautifully told, beautifully photographed film does everything so very, very right. The pain in men's expressions, the empty streets, the mother wiping tears from her eyes at her child's grave side and the unbearable sadness of John Collins, who lost his entire family along with his home and everything in it. The anguish of Aberfan is has never been better portrayed, nor has the grieving dignity of the community, than in this film.
Lamenting
I was born in Aberfan. I'm too young to remember the tragedy but I remember having Gwen and Cyril (?) on one side who lost their daughter and Dilys further up the street who had lost a son. They were so lovely to me and the other younger generation. Fantastic video, this. xx
@@MoiiMoii9226 Did she live there?
I agree with the comment below. In Portsmouth I was eleven years old and my brother Paul just three when this happened. Our mum Rose sent 10/- to the fund and I still have the letter and receipt from Merthyr. The tears still flow even now some 60 years later. Disasters like that never go away. The children and the families are forever in our thoughts and prayers.
i was driven past this site when 5 with my parents . we now live in australia and have done sinse 1980 but no matter the time i spend in this wonderfull land australia the voice of the valleys for ever haunts me as if calling come home ..the older im getting the louder its gets ...what is with that ?
Hiraeth
These photographs are astonishing. They capture the depth of this tragedy with the eloquence that mere words can't achieve. Those tough miners look so haunted and empty. That little girl all alone at the jukebox with no-one to pick out a song with. The little boy staring up at the tip trying to comprehend what had happened to him and his world. The photographer treated his subjects with such dignity and respect. How the people of Aberfan kept going and rebuilt their lives after enduring this unfathomable loss is a testament to their courage, strength and dignity that the photographer captured so well. RIP to all who died that day.
Im 64 in December. I remember this so clearly.
This is the first film where i didnt feel red hot anger but cried and smiled. Thank you fir the good memories of the 60s ❤❤
I have the utmost respect for the photographer who did this work. I served as a journalist for six years, it is not easy to gain the trust of a community at normal times, and at such a disaster must indicate he had genuine empathy for the people. I was 8 years old when the disaster happened. It was the first news story to capture my attention. The children were my age. My uncles and grandparents has been miners in the Scottish mines. I related to it. Now at age 62, I have never forgotten Aberfan. I cried watching this. My tears and sadness somehow still give honour to those of my generation who never saw adulthood.
Painful to watch as the expressions on the faces of men and women and children. I cried through this beautiful tribute. The author definitely showed compassion and dignity in presenting this. RIP to all who lost their lives that day.
A beautifully tragic and haunting collection. That's why documentary photographers are a precious breed. Thank you for sharing. Andy The Liberties, Dublin. 25.10.2021
Wow probably one of the most powerful documentaries I’ve ever seen. Really well told
As someone from South Wales, and on the anniversary of this tragedy, this video truly shows a little of what the village had to go through. Not about the Coal board but genuinely about the community and the families. Thank you x
My nan actually lost one of her cousins in this. My nan lived the next village over. We know she visited aberfan the day after everything happened with her grandmother......she never spoke about it. Ever. Other than to say she missed her cousin every day. Even though it didn't physically hurt her, it still traumatised her. Her and her cousin were both 9-10 years old. This was beautiful.
So beautiful, so deeply moving, this makes the internet a better place. Thanks a lot!
It's 55yearsto the day and even today it still shocks me my heart goes out to the people of Aber fan god bless the people of aberfan,
Well written and presented. RIP all those who died that day....
Wow! An absolutely stunning documentary that captures the heartaches of that period in time. I was nine when Aberfan happened, a child myself, going to school in Liverpool, sad for the children who died that day. The people of Wales are beautiful ❤️. RIP little ones.
Bless you Ben-your a very wonderful man and moved me watching this video on my first day back visiting the graves as long over due coming back to wales on 1st May 2022
Bless Aberfan
Lovely, compasionate, simple. Thank You, Cariad.
I just watched "The Crown" episode on Aberfan. I had not known about this disaster. I needed to learn more about it and I came across this pictorial essay. This goes behind the story and life afterward. I cannot begin to imagine the pain and grief the people of Aberfan experienced. In addition, the way the government treated the survivors of this tragedy is beyond belief. I had read that the people of Aberfan had to pay for the removal of the remaining tips and that the "Coal Board" did not take any responsibility for tips being beyond safety parameters. Thank you for making this very well written pictorial account available---learning experience.
I’m watching this in December 2022 ~ 56 years from that horrendous time when Aberfan was fighting to stay alive. The documentary is an honorable tribute to those lost ~ 116 children and 28 adults ~ but also to those who survived and kept on living.
This documentary is so heartbreaking but beautiful, we will never forget the little loves lost , their teachers, the families in the houses & the farm. To the survivors, we hold your hands. We love you so much Aberfan xx😢
Thank you for showing this. It was very moving and made me cry.
Yes, so beautifully told. I remember it so well, I was 11 at the time but I will never forget how I felt for those children and their families. Bless them all, they will never be forgotten.
Although each and every death in Aberfan that day was a tragedy, made worse by the fact it had been so obviously avoidable, the story of John Collins alone just breaks your heart. Being a father myself, I cannot begin to comprehend what that man must have gone through in the days, weeks or even years to come after that awful day. Losing one child, doesn't bear thinking about, but to lose everything, wife, children and even the home you watched your children grow up in, creating happy memories for the future. How that man found the strength to carry on I don't know. It must have been even worse, considering he worked for the very people that caused the slide in the first place, then tried to wriggle out of taking any blame.
Credit: I C Rapoport commenting on his photograph of John Collins.
However, what neither John nor I knew at the time, his releasing me to take his picture would play a part in changing his whole life for the better. For, my photo of him ran in the Aberfan aftermath story and an American woman saw it and was so moved by the photo and his story that she contacted him, met him, and a romance blossomed and they married. He had a new wife, a new life. Of course I was completely unaware of all this as they years passed and then in 2010 I received an email out of the blue from one Bernice Collins who informed me that she was John Collins daughter from this second marriage and told me that it was my photo of her dad that changed his life. John passed away some time ago, but I was thrilled to hear that my work had such an impact on one man.
Ironically she said she met and married a man whose two given names were Raymond Peter - both the names of John’s lost children.”
Wow….I was so moved at what happened to John Collins, his quote about literally losing everyone & everything in his life I couldn’t even imagine how he coped. And that picture of him, just there…. I’m so glad I decided to randomly tap on your comment response and what an amazing, heartwarming story to hear what happened. That should be an Oscar winning movie! Good things do happen. Thank you!
@@bobbynoggin wow, that gave me goosebumps.
I remember it so vividly😢. Quakers Yard, the nearby school I attended sent certain classes hot foot to the site to help. A few of the fittest of us got there ahead and went in line for picks and shovels. From our school we came over the mountains and when we got there the tip was still moving under our feet. My sad memories are of the total silence. Which was eerie given the amount of frantic efforts at digging that was going on. In the years that followed I gained a massive appreciation for the way Aberfan ppl showed their strength and resilience to rebuild their lives. But will NEVER forget.
I never really understood the true heartbreak and lost that hit that town until i watched this, i am glad i watched this to understand what had happened, but my heart was broke by the end, my son is a stone mainson and his has to go over to the Aberfan cemetery to clean all the stones and when ever he does he always comes home so upset and quiet and you can always tell when he has been to the Aberfan cemetery i can clearly understand why after watching this. This short doc should be played in all the older schools so that this heart breaking time in history will never be forgotten.
What a wonderful recollection of the Aberfan disaster.
I remember my mother talking about it ,,I was a kid in Dublin....then I met my future wife, year's later obviously, and her mother was Welsh....a beautiful strong woman, who chastised me many a time ,,,😂 for my own good...She lost brother's in the mines in Wales, ,,,,as did my Father in law from Dublin,,,he lost brother's in the Yorkshire mines..Brilliant video brother....
What a staggering powerful representation. I am currently researching the Aberfan disaster. This hit me like a brick. Bravo.
I choked back tears through the whole video. Wanted to learn more after seeing “The Crown.” RIP, precious souls.
My husband's stepfather is the son of pearl crowe! This video is a wonderful insight into the time of the desaster which we all learned about in school! Xx
Very moving. Beautifully done. Thank you.
I'm from hirwaun which is only on the other end of the heads of the valleys road to methyr and Aberfan say 5/6Miles away and this story has always been remembered in our schools in the valleys , such a sad time for all the people involved,
Great job on this video tho it has a nice touch
What a beautiful Documentary .. nicely done 💙💓
So moving and tragic. RIP X
Thank-You❤️
great tribute, with lots respect....well done,jank. greetings from Argentina
These stories breaks my hart, I was 14 at school when we heard about this tragedy, being so young I never grasped the tragic events fully, only when I got home , my mother & fathers body language from television
Great photography, story sensitively told. Well done.
Thank you
my dad whent to Aberfan that day we where living on a farm up by Carick cannon it the little velley in trapp LLandylo and i was told to stay Home as i was working in a tibber mill i was 17 but remember dad coming back afew days later very upshet with whot he had seen that day and told us all we where very lucky kids as i was 1 of 12 at the time godbless all them little one xxx so sad
A fitting tribute. Could have done with a longer look at the photos shown toward the end of the programme. I knew Aberfan as a child, pre October 1966 and the place always struck me as a little sad even then. I certainly thought the silhouettes of the tips were very sinister. If you wanted to see what an archetypal South Wales mining village looked liked
Those tips started in the 1800's, but why were they permitted to not only continue, but be built so high? Hard to believe people did not know about gravity in those days.
Exceptional. This happened on the day of my first birthday...😥
This is so touching.thank you for this film
The author of this must have been accepted as he would never have been able to take these insightful pictures. I am Welsh I remember the Aberfan slag heap demolishing the Pantglas school like it was yesterday.
So heartbreaking xxxxxx
*tears* ... just more tears
Thank you.
I’m English and was 14 years old at the time of the disaster. I lived in England, a long way from Wales but I remember watching reports of the tragedy on the evening news after school with Cliff Mitchelmore reporting from the site and my mum in floods of tears. I’m in my 70s now (and live in Wales) but the stir6 of what happened has always stayed with me. The loss of the children was bad enough, but the response by the Coal Board afterwards was utterly and thoroughly shameful.
This is a strong story! I am very affected. Thanks for sharing.
I remember my old Head teacher a fiery Welshman standing on the stage at the secondary school face blood red and tear stained unable to say much..It was my sisters 11th birthday..The saddest memoir for me was of a Mum who sent her little boy off to school with no breakfast he'd been naughty..........she never saw him again
Wow. I cannot begin to imagine the grief she was feeling. Not only losing her son ,but knowing she let him leave the house in those circumstances.😥😥.Iain Leeds Yorkshire.
I was in Junior Infants class in Murroe National School in County Limerick, Ireland when the Aberfan disaster happened. I can still vividly remember our teacher Ms O'Neill leading us little tots in prayer for the victims of Aberfan. We did not know where Wales was, let alone Aberfan...but we understood from our teacher that something really terrible had happened to children just like us and that was enough. This was a disaster that deeply affected everyone here in Ireland too. God Bless all the deceased and their families...and Ms O'Neill who passed away herself in the past year or so. Rest In Peace all of you....
Thanks for your sentasive commentary
Nicely done. Made with compassion.
Heartbreaking, ❤️❤️❤️
great tribute Ben
For me, the most piercing aspect of this video, was how you ( the narrator ) were not trusted after the wolves of the media ( we all know who they are ) had already been there before you, with their sensationalism and their lust for headlines. Nothing has changed and these people are the scourge of all mankind.
After watching the crown its so sad 😭 even though I remember it happing just sad Bless all those who lost their lives
To the entire Rapoport clan: Thank you all for creating this. To Photographer Rapoport: I see a Nikon F (or "Ftn") on the bureau/desk in your hotel; I learned on my Uncles' F, and still have two "F" bodies [both of my children learned how to shoot with them - my youngest, a son, being but 19-years-old now]. Your images are rich and beautiful. May I ask: What film-stock were you using? Kodak's Pan-F (for the exteriors), Tri-X (for interiors); or was it a combo of Ilford products, are what I suspect?
If you get the chance or inclination, I'd greatly-enjoy hearing about your technical(s): Film, lens, film developer, etc.. I can see only a few instances where a dodge may have been used (and I presume them to have been done in the darkroom, all of those years-ago, as there's a unique visual footprint that I [think] I am detecting). Your exposures and processing/printing are flawless, Sir.
Best regards, from a person who believes that there's room for all-tech (but that film is king).
I spent several minutes, during and after this viewing, weeping uncontrollably.
Your imagery, and the treatment of the subject matter, are powerful and respectful.
Moved and humbled here.
This is so sad ....
This was great
Very poignant, yet it seems disrespectful to "like" this video. RIP all victims of this awful tragedy.
Nothing disrespectful in liking the respect it was done with and offers to those affected.
Wow. Tragic but a fantastic report.
Some of my fathers work mates in Cardiff lost their children in the Aberfan disaster. So cruel and tragic and it is something I will never forget. I visited the cemetery to pay my respects in the 1980s as I was school age at the time of the tragedy. I will never forget the ornate rows of graves in white. The tips are still dangerous with water still running through them and underground streams - they were never completely cleared by the coal board and there is always a lot of rain there. They need to invest in the area which brought the country so much wealth from the mines and miners hard work. RIP 🌹❤️
A sad account and done with respect . I went up the tip 50 years to the day and time it happened, I was eight years old in 1966, in a school in the next valley doing the same things as those children. How could God let this happen ? that question has never been answered. Benjamin Rapoport
Wales paid the price for coal, sengynedd just down the road from you paid a heavy price too mate, my uncle was one of three to survive from his classroom that day James
@@richardevans7035 Its ironic, without coal most of us in South Wales would not have existed and the UK would have been a lesser power without it. It destroyed my grandfathers heath due to the "dust " And most of the miners in the family did not make it to 65
@Lisa Gallivan Alf Robens, Chairman of the Coal Board not only failed to attend the scene until 24 hours later but he falsely claimed that NCB had no prior knowledge the streams under the tip, which was shown to be a lie. He was guilty at best of callous indifference, at worst of something much more serious.
@Lisa Gallivan If it is any consolation, it ruined his reputation and his career as a politician. He was a vile man and his name will always be associated with Aberfan.
How awful this happening god bless you all xx
Ni allaf anghofio,
Nid anghofiwn,
rhaid i'r byd beidio ag anghofio
Beyond moving.......
God, so unbelievably tragic for all those involved.
🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏No words🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
a most wonderful account of the tradgedy and written by a yank ?
Jim Hicks was heartbroken
Где можно найти список погибших?у меня дед погиб.
My papaw had a lot of child loss when he was a child
4:24
🤺💐
what is arborfan
Have you not bothered to watch?
@@seamusoflatcap if your comment is in response to what i said, then yes i did watch said video. but it is not my fault if some damn robot cant pronounce place names properly, cos that is why i made the comment.
@thedisabledwelshman9266 Your comment didn't make that clear but came across as not knowing what had happened.
Aberfan eposed how little the elites cared about the underclass.
Lovely respectful documentary but of God, that awful music ear splitting
At least he could have taken the time to learn to say the name of Aberfan correctly, it isn't that difficult