HUW EDWARDS MY VIEW

The newsreader on why he had to make a programme about Aberfan 50 years on

The name Aberfan was very much part of my childhood in south Wales. I was five when the disaster happened, and we had a service in school on the tenth anniversary in 1976 when we were shown footage of the events. But now 50 years on, having revisited the tragedy for Aberfan: The Fight For Justice, which will be shown next week on BBC1, I find the scale of it even more shocking.

For those too young to remember – on 21 October 1966 a mountain of coal waste collapsed on the village of Aberfan, destroying the local school and several houses, killing 116 children and 28 adults. It was one of Britain’s worst peacetime disasters and made headlines around the world.

Aberfan has always resonated particularly strongly with me, for my mother was raised in a nearby mining village also overshadowed by huge, menacing coal tips. At my grandmother’s house, the lights had to be on even in summer because the tips cast such a dark shadow. Moreover, my grandfather was a collier who lost his life in a rockfall in Blaengarw in 1937. He was just 28, my mother seven months old.

As a journalist, you have to be objective when covering a tragedy, be it one that happened relatively recently, such as the Paris Bataclan shootings, or further back in time such as Aberfan. That said, I’ve yet to meet anyone – including hardened journalists – who was not moved by the Aberfan story, and in particular the loss of all those innocent children.

The important thing is to show respect to everyone involved, from the families who’ve had to rebuild their lives, to the survivors who are now in their 50s and 60s. There’s no room for any sensationalising. You have to let the facts speak for themselves and they do so very clearly, as my programme demonstrates.

The inquiry into the disaster was a flawed process which resulted in no prosecutions or disciplinary action. Yes, it was recognised that coal tips posed a deadly threat to mining communities, but it took many years for them all to be cleared or stabilised. And unbelievably, Harold Wilson’s Labour government insisted on the people of Aberfan making a big financial contribution to the clearing of the tips that resulted in such horrific loss of life. Not only did the people of Aberfan suffer a terrible tragedy, but they also suffered a terrible injustice at the hands of government and the coal authorities. It’s important that future generations understand what happened. Huw Edwards is the presenter of the BBC News At Ten. He presents Aberfan: The Fight For Justice on 18 October on BBC1.