AnD HER GRanDSOn LaY WREaTH fOR 116 LOST SCHOOLmaTES
THE dramatic rescue of Susan Maybank by policeman Victor Jones was caught in an iconic photograph flashed around the world.
Fifty years later and still living in the village that holds so many memories, she honoured her lost schoolmates in Aberfan yesterday.
Now a grandmother, Susan took grandson Mackenzie Robertson,10, to a memorial service to help keep the memory alive for a new generation. Mackenzie was only a year older than Susan, then eight, was on that fateful day when last year he was given a school project on the 1966 disaster. It brought the tragedy home to him and his pals, and how Susan was affected.
Since then he has read books, seen documentaries and created a scrapbook about it and this week gave a talk to 100 schoolmates at Tir-y-berth Primary School in the neighbouring Rhymney Valley.
His grandmother, now Susan Robertson, 58, said: “I’m overwhelmed at the way Mackenzie has taken such an interest in what happened and so proud of him.”
They laid a wreath in Aberfan cemetery and shared tears for a lost generation of children – many of them Susan’s playmates. PC Jones carries eight-year-old Susan to safety