65 October 1966

School dinners, loved by some and loathed by many, didn’t do me any harm. I wasn’t keen on faggots wrapped in pale streaky bacon but I liked stew and I loved suet-topped meat pie with mash and gravy. And desserts; rice pudding with a blob of jam, crumble and custard, lemon meringue pie, gypsy tart… lovely! God bless our dinner ladies.

School dinner was my main meal of the day. At home, my brothers and I had butties for tea. Then we switched on the telly to get it warmed up for when programmes began at five o'clock. On a typical day we might get a couple of cartoons (Deputy Dawg/Hector Heathcote/Tom and Jerry) and an episode of (something like) Robinson Crusoe. Then, as the news came on and Dad arrived home from work, we disappeared out of the way. Working seven days a week wasn't unusual for Dad, a painter and decorator for Ward and Partners. He took butties to work and had his main meal when he came home, which he expected to eat in peace and quiet.

Dad worked tirelessly to keep his five sons and daughter clothed and fed. The Welsh born son of an Irishman, Dad wasn’t one for small talk. Indeed, his application of the carrot and stick method of child development came carrot-free, swift and brutal. Each of us knew what a thick ear and a good hiding felt like, and though we recognised the danger signs as we got older, we were always wary. Perhaps Dad was made that way. Perhaps, with all the pressure and responsibility he carried, he just didn’t have time to indulge us with a softer, more patient approach. Either way, if any of us got on his wrong side we took the consequences and suffered the misery. Getting hit was by no means a daily event but the threat was ever present and keep us in line, most of the time. 

Keeping out of Dad’s way was easy when the weather was fine. If I wasn’t throwing a tennis ball up against the front wall of our Crundale Road home, and twisting in mid air to head it on the rebound into the privets behind me (in my mind I was Ron Davies), I was out playing football. If I wasn’t with Paul in Wingham Close, or with Stan, Paul and Clive in Leeds Square, I was with Clive, Paul, Stan and up to thirty others on Beechings playing fields.

But on the 21^st October, I didn’t go anywhere. I just stared at the television screen as a horrifying story unfolded. A landslide in Wales had destroyed a school. Children had been killed, lots of them, in a place called Aberfan. I was shaken, and not just because I had a Welsh dad, Welsh relations, and brothers the same age as those poor children. Cameras at the scene showed people still working desperately to clear mud and rubble. But it was all too late. The children of Aberfan had died in their classrooms that morning, just five minutes after they’d sung All Things Bright and Beautiful in assembly.