h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It's been 40 years since the Aberfan diaster

No sorry dit not have a clue...

i didnt realise it was the exact date today.

my memories of it were, that my uncle who was in the police force in the walsall area at the time, was sent on secondment to help out and clear up the mess left behind.
i distinctly remember him coming home and telling us all about the horrors of it all

being only 11 at the time, it didnt register as some great disaster.
its only in later years as things came to light that you realise that it was a tradegy that could have been avoided.

I was born 2 years later but I've always known about it, there was a kind of documentry on that mum was watching, The men of the tip removal commitee formed a Male Voice Choir (After the tips had been removed) that performs for charity to this day

Thanks for the reminder It is right it should be remembered

S'ok

I remember it vividly, but didn't realise that it was that long ago, or when it was.

I wasn't born then, in fact I think my parents were still living in NY back then, but if I had been I'd remember it I expect, but I probably wouldn't remember the exact date. Growing up in Birmingham while the IRA were blowing things up on a regular basis has caused me to grow up with a very pragmatic view of life

A517673

I watched "Aberfan - the untold story" last night.

It's not actually the 40th anniversary until 21 October:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/21/newsid_2705000/2705335.stm

I knew it was coming up

I wasn't born then but my parents were still in the UK at the time and they remembered it. I remember them telling me about it and I remember seeing a show about it years ago when I first moved over here. I had no idea that it was so many years ago.

Both of my grandfathers were in the IRA during the War of Independence, then after the Treaty one was Pro-treaty the other Anti-treaty so when I was young any family meeting was full of them arguing and remembering those killed in the wars. The only thing both of them agreed on was the fact that civilian bombing campaigns by the new IRA were atrocities. My paternal grand father would go on for ages about how, and I quote, "Those B****d's should be tied to a lamppost and get a pull of a hurley from every single person in the Isles." He would refuse to use the term "British Isles".

I still figure he was on the right track though.

Thanks for that LeRue, an interesting story