Aberfan disaster survivor haunted after being 'buried alive with dead classmate victim on his shoulder'

It might have been nearly 60 years ago, but Jeff Edwards can still picture his dead classmate. She was killed when a coal tip collapsed on a Welsh mining village, engulfing a school and houses. In total, 144 lives were lost in Aberfan, including 116 children, making it one of Britain’s worst industrial disasters. Instead of searching for coal, a community found itself digging for life. Only eight at the time, Jeff was the last child rescued alive. With the King visiting next week to mark the 60th anniversary, Jeff recalls the moment his village was ripped apart by tragedy. Class 2A of Pantglas Junior School was having its last day before half-term when death arrived on the morning of October 21, 1966. To see more of the stories you value from The Mirror and to find them easily in Google then make us your preferred source. Free and easy-to-do, just click on the link here to find more from The Mirror at the top of your feed. “There was a sort of rumbling noise,” says Jeff, 68, who lives hundreds of yards from where the school once stood. “And that rumbling noise got louder and louder. The ground started to shake, and the teacher said to us, ‘Don’t worry, it’s only thunder’. The next thing I remember was waking up with all this material over me. "My right leg was under a radiator with hot water coming out on it. On my left shoulder was a dead girl and I couldn’t get away from her because I was stuck, the desk was against my stomach... The only reason I survived was that I had a pocket of air around me which enabled me to breathe. The majority of children who died in the disaster either died of physical trauma as a result of the tip material or the roof collapsing, or they died of asphyxiation, they were buried and smothered.” Jeff’s striking blond hair was spotted during the rescue and he was saved. A powerful black-and-white image shows him being carried, wrapped in a blanket. We visited the site of the disaster with Jeff, where a memorial garden marks those who lost their lives. Jeff sustained injuries to his head and stomach, but it was the psychological pain that hurt him most. He explains: “The effect on you of seeing the scenes that you’d seen as a young child, particularly the girl on my shoulder, would give me constant nightmares. Any noise, particularly thunder, would make me extremely frightened. I didn’t want to go to school because I was afraid that the tip would come down again. I used to wet the bed because of the anxiety that I felt and the nervousness that I had.” Recalling the dead girl on his shoulder, Jeff says: “As time went on, her skin became very puffy. Her eyes started to sink into her head. I used to see that continuously, practically on a daily basis, and have nightmares about that.” Asked if he can still picture her, Jeff replies: “I can see her now.” He adds: “Obviously that caused the nightmares, it caused the depression. You just learn to live with that. You develop mechanisms that you can cope with the anxiety and stress that you face as a result of seeing that.” Jeff led Merthyr Tydfil County Council for four years and has been an influential community figure for decades. He was made an OBE for his services to fellow survivors of disasters and to charity. Earlier this year, it was presented to him by the King, whose mother visited Aberfan after the tragedy. But the late Queen had faced criticism for taking eight days to go to the village, in south Wales. Her reaction to the disaster – featured in an episode of Netflix drama The Crown – was said to be one of the biggest regrets of her reign. 'I was buried alive with my dead friend's head on my shoulder' Another in Jeff’s class who survived was Gerald Kirwan, a dad-of-two who has five grandchildren. Speaking from his Aberfan home, he says: “My first best friend didn’t come to school so my second-best friend was sitting behind and he asked the teacher, could he come and sit next to me. The next thing I could hear a noise, like a rumbling and it got louder. How I can describe it is like a jet aeroplane. “A black mass just came, you could see it coming through the windows. I must have got knocked out because I had been shoved from the middle of the class against the back wall. I was buried up to my chest. [A girl] was on top of me. My little friend, his little head was... on my shoulder. I was speaking to him, ‘Are you OK? Are you OK?’ “There was blood running down from his nose and from the corner of his mouth, a frothy blood... he didn’t talk.” He was dead, Gerald says. The now defunct state-owned National Coal Board was found responsible for the tragedy. A tribunal concluded: “The Aberfan Disaster is a terrifying tale of bungling ineptitude by many men charged with tasks for which they were totally unfitted, of failure to heed clear warnings, and of total lack of direction from above.” Gerald, who miraculously escaped serious injury, went on to work a number of jobs including at the colliery. He says: “I’ve got grandchildren, I’ve got kids. I can’t imagine what happened to me happening to any one of them. I’d be shouting from the top of the mountains about it.” 'All my life I've told my story' Gaynor Madgwick, who spent 12 weeks in hospital, was the girl on top of Gerald. She survived but her brother and sister both died. The 68-year-old retired charity worker, who lives in Merthyr Tydfil, wrote a book about Aberfan. She says: “All my life I’ve told my story.” Mum-of-three Gaynor has six grandchildren – the youngest is eight, the same age she was on the day of the tragedy. Speaking at the memorial garden, Gaynor explains: “She’s been here. She knows everything about what happened to her grandma.” 'I was laid with deceased bodies until someone thought they saw me move' Another pupil in the class, David Davies, was mistakenly placed with the dead. He says: “I was buried immediately and, fairly quickly, from something falling from the ceiling I was rendered unconscious. When I was brought out I was laid with the deceased bodies, covered in a blanket until someone thought they saw my foot move. So I was re-examined by a doctor, obviously I was still alive and so I was taken off to hospital.” David suffered “fairly serious injuries, mainly head injuries”, he says. The 68-year-old, who went on to study at Cambridge and work as a lawyer, lives in the village today and chairs the Aberfan Memorial Charity. In 2023, he showed the Prince and Princess of Wales the memorial garden. Next week, the King will be joined on his visit with the Queen and Prince William. David says: “Obviously it was an awful thing, but I think it’s far more than that. It’s really about the resilience, the fortitude and the community coming together as it did in the years after 1966. It’s not untypical of Welsh valleys communities, even today. If there’s a need to come together collectively to do something positive, that’s what we do. It’s in our blood, really.” For Jeff, it is vital to continue telling the story of Aberfan. He says: “It’s important that we keep the memory alive because of the tragedy that happened, the loss that it made. That sacrifice that was made should not be in vain, it should be there to help others.”