The first time the Queen wept in public
AS THE CROWN RECREATES HORROR OF ABERFAN
IBY LAURA CONNOR T WAS one of the most terrible tragedies to hit her kingdom. But the Aberfan disaster in 1966, which claimed the lives of 116 schoolchildren and 28 adults, is also remembered as one of the few moments the Queen misjudged the mood of the nation.
Instead of visiting the devastated Welsh village immediately, she accepted the advice of courtiers and delayed.
The highly emotional day when the Queen did finally visit Aberfan is being recreated for Netflix drama The Crown.
These pictures capture Olivia Colman, 44, who has taken over from 34-year-old actress Claire Foy, dressed identically to the Queen more than half a century ago.
Olivia and Tobias Menzies, who inherits the role of Prince Philip from Matt Smith, were filming in Cwmaman, 15 miles from Aberfan, with series three and four of the show spanning 1964-76.
In her 66 years on the throne, the visit to Aberfan is a day the Queen will never forget. It was the first time she cried in public as she grieved for the mining village. She wept as a girl handed her a posy, bearing the inscription: “From the remaining children of Aberfan.”
It created such a bond with the community, that day was the first of four visits to Aberfan so far during her reign.
The colliery spoil tip engulfed the school on October 21, 1966, within five minutes. Days of rain caused the rock and shale tip that had been built up over 50 years to slide downhill at up to 50mph.
More than 1.4million cubic feet of debris swamped the village, with pupils and staff of Pantglas Junior School dying from the impact or from suffocation.
At the time, the Queen’s children Andrew, then six, and Edward, two, were both at home. It was nine days after the disaster when she travelled to Wales.
Her private secretary Lord Charteris later said that failing to visit the site sooner was her biggest regret.
When asked by former Tory MP Gyles Brandreth if the Queen had ever put a foot wrong, Lord Charteris replied:
The Queen promised she would open the school and she is here
ELAINE RICHARDS WHO LOST DAUGHTER SYLVIA
“Aberfan.” He admitted he gave the Queen poor advice, saying: “We told her to stay away until the preliminary shock had worn off. We got it wrong.”
But those who were there that day have only gratitude that the Queen came to the tiny Taff Valley community to comfort the bereaved.
Marjorie Collins’ son Anthony Wayne died when he was eight years old. Speaking later, she said: “We feel honoured she came here. She came as as she could.” Sir Mansel Aylward, 75, then a young doctor and later knighted for services to healthcare, said: “I was there, having just qualified as a doctor, helping families identify their children’s bodies. I didn’t see anyone come out alive.
“Some of the people whose children died were school friends. I lost a couple of cousins who were children at the school. For the Queen to do what she did, to show sympathy in the way that she did with the people she had only just met must have been very difficult. She was very moved. She tried to hold back tears but it did make her cry.”
THE Queen made a promise to return to the village to open a new school when one was rebuilt – and she returned three times in the next half-century.
On the 50th anniversary of the disaster in 2016, she sent a message to survivors and bereaved families, reading: “I want you to know that you are in my own and my family’s thoughts, as well as the thoughts of the nation.
“We will all be thinking about the 144 people who died – most of them children between the ages of seven and 10 – and the hundreds more who have lived with the shock and grief of that day, summed up by one poet who said simply, ‘All the elements of tragedy are here’.”
Elaine Richards, who lost her ninesoon year-old daughter Sylvia, said the Queen’s promise gave the village hope. On her fourth visit in 2012, the Queen opened Ynysowen Community Primary School as part of her Diamond Jubilee tour of south Wales.
Elaine said then: “It has been a great privilege that the Queen remembered to come back. To me, that’s important.
“She promised me 44 years ago she would open the school and she is here today. It is a very emotional day, I had to be coaxed to come here to remember the little ones who died.”
One of a handful of teachers to survive was Hettie Williams, then 23.
She said meeting the Queen for the third time at the new school was touching. “I lost a lot of close friends,” she said. “Everyone involved in the disaster shares a special bond. I think it would be quite emotional for the Queen.”
Jeff Edwards, the last child to be dragged out alive, revealed the Queen arranged for a personal donation to be given to the Aberfan and Merthyr Vale Youth and Community project, set up in the tragedy’s aftermath.
Jeff, one of just 25 child survivors from Pantglas, developed the scheme 20 years ago to help address deprivation for young people.
“I think Aberfan is a special place for her,” he said. “The last time I was in the palace Her Majesty wanted to meet me as I was from Aberfan.”
Ingrid Seward, editor-in-chief of Majesty Magazine, said the Queen’s tears warmed the heart of the nation.
She added: “She will have wanted to go sooner. Her crying in public is unprecedented. She is conditioned to never show emotion in public.”