Memorial is wrecked by vandals

A COMMUNITY was left devastated when a miners’ memorial was destroyed by vandals.

The memorial was renovated in April to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the explosions at Ferndale colliery, in which 178 men and boys were killed.

After many months of fundraising and hard work in the South Wales Valleys town, the new memorial was unveiled, with a statue depicting a coal cart with four benches surrounding it.

Anna Jones, member of the Ferndale and Blaenllechau Miners’ Memorial group, said: “The memorial was being neglected and the community came together, with youth groups getting involved, the fire and police stations and everybody else, cleaned it, washed all down, painted it and the benches, and took care of it.

“It was a massive community effort and everyone was really proud with what we had achieved.”

But the celebratory feeling was shortlived after the renovation, when one of the benches was ripped out by vandals.

Anna added: “A week afterwards, some older teenagers had gone down there and ripped a bench from the concrete and ripped up the paving stones.

“The community had been so pleased and everyone was devastated because we were really proud with what we had achieved and to see that someone had gone down there and had done that was extremely upsetting.”

The memorial and bench were repaired by the town’s PCSOs and the renovations remain ongoing.

Later on in the year there will be a community event to commemorate the anniversary of the disaster which took place on November 8, 1867.

Two consecutive explosions took place at Ferndale No.1 colliery, which killed those who were working down the mine at the time.

Rescuers were hampered by roof falls and it took a month for the bodies to be recovered, with many so severely burned and disfigured that it made identification impossible.

At a subsequent enquiry, a lamp keeper said safety locks had been tampered with and incidents regularly occurred that breached the company’s rules, but these breaches were ignored by the mine manager.

A jury later returned a verdict that the explosions took place as a result of accumulation of gas in certain working of the colliery, due to the neglect of the manager, and as a result of the gas being fired by one or more of the colliers carelessly taking off the tops of their lamps and working with naked lights.