‘Such an important event in our history I couldn’t avoid it’
The Aberfan disaster, in which 116 primary schoolchildren and 33 adults died, happened 51 years ago today. Chief reporter Martin Shipton talks to Menna Elfyn, who has written a sequence of poems inspired by the tragedy
IN her new poetry collection Bondo, Menna Elfyn includes a section called Aberfan: Poems of Unravelling.
Her brief introduction to the 15 short poems states: “The dignity of the grieving families is one of the longstanding features of this tragedy.
“The sense of community spirit prevails to this day in the valley and is much lauded. It is a testimony to the enduring spirit of love through adversity.”
One of Wales’ most respected contemporary poets, Elfyn is Professor of Poetry and Creative Writing at the University of Wales, Trinity Saint David. She is also well-known as a Western Mail columnist. Yet, like other creative writers, she has been somewhat nervous about publishing work linked to the Aberfan tragedy, worried about the possibility that it might be considered not in good taste.
No one, however, could accuse Elfyn of insensitivity or of exploitation.
Her poems express both poignancy and anger at the way so many lives were lost as a result of gross negligence on the part of the authorities – most especially, the National Coal Board.
She said: “I’d been jotting things down here and there in diaries and journals I keep, but I did have this feeling of not wanting to publish them.
“I’ve been to Aberfan, of course, but not like other writers who have spoken to local people.
“Eventually I came to the conclusion that it’s such an important event in Welsh history that I couldn’t avoid it, and with the revelations about Hillsborough and Grenfell Tower too, it was something I had to do. It also linked in to the destruction of Aleppo and in my life to the work I have done for the Save the Children Fund.”
In one of the poems, titled Schooling in the English version translated from the original Welsh, Elfyn tells of the impact of the tragedy on generations of children and on the community as a whole: A good school is only there for a while: pupils come and learn, and drift away, but lessons mean something different now. How hard the school of life is for the little ones. No tracks to follow. An instant temporary school appeared. The children were encouraged to draw their lost ones on the virgin paper, a picture with a story at its end. What is this? Not simply a half century of history; it is the mourning locked deep in a furrow. It never leaves. It never comes and goes with time.
Elfyn’s sense of anger at the way Aberfan was doubly wronged – firstly by the negligence which caused the tragedy and then by the inhumanity of politicians who considered there was nothing wrong in taking £150,000 from the appeal fund in part payment for the remedial work on the tip that collapsed – is captured most directly in a poem called
Truth versus Truth. She explains the paradox in the title in a note which says: “Truth in Welsh (pronounced treeth) means falsehood, blandishment, nonsense, rigmarole or in a new Welsh dictionary: a story which has no shape or sense.” After the truth: a hoard of falsehood. After the sycophancy: Another truth, ‘decent men’. After the anguish the vital truth: the cost. After the inquiry, high office against folk. After the ‘truth’ of the waste, the rigmarole of wasted speech. To the pure of heart half a century of buried truths. Truth versus truth versus truth.
Another poem is focused on the extraordinary story of a young arsonist who posed as a caretaker and set fire to the chapel in Aberfan which had been used as a makeshift mortuary on the day of the tragedy.
A distinctive feature of Elfyn’s work is that she publishes her poems simultaneously in Welsh and English. A first language Welsh speaker, she always writes in that language, and usually gets other writers to translate them.
She said: “I write in the language I know best and in which I can express myself fully. For me, English is an academic language. But I want my poems to be read by English speakers, so the best solution is to get them translated by writers who are able to write creatively in English and can bring something new to them.”
The translators are usually highly regarded writers in their own right, like Gillian Clarke, Elin ap Hywel and Damian Walford Davies.
Another is Robert Minhinnick, who is not himself fluent in Welsh, but in whom Elfyn has full confidence to create a dynamic rendition of her work in English.
Her commitment to freedom of expression is underlined by her role as President of the Welsh branch of PEN, the worldwide organisation that campaigns against attempts to frustrate it.
“It’s very important to let writers and people more generally express themselves.
“We’ve worked with refugees and asylum seekers to help them find a voice.”