Did You Stop Believing...?

Tragedy on an unprecedented scale.

Although I had realised I could use my memoir to develop my writing and that tiny snippets can be developed into whole chapters and even poetry, I never truly believed it until I spoke to my auntie about the Aberfan disaster. And in those few words in which she told me that day my uncle came home from work and told her he had stopped believing in god I realised just how much I had at my fingertips just waiting to be written.

And when I sat down to write this poem to share this simple and powerful story of my uncle declaring he no longer believed in god it was a lightbulb moment. And in that moment, I was destined to keepto writing. To share old stories through new eyes and to do so with compassion.

And as I researched this tragedy and the horror that unfolded, the carnage; the destruction and above all the vile behaviours of all those who should have begged forgiveness, then and now, I realised this story; this tragedy on an unprecedented scale, had more to tell.

Did you stop believing in god?

Did you stop believing in god that day
When you heard it on the news?
That 116 children and 28 adults had perished
Under the thick sludge of the coal mining slag heap
That raged through the tiny village of Aberfan
And Pantglas Primary School in Wales.

Did you stop believing in god that day
When you saw the pictures on the news?
That showed the school obliterated
And along with it the lives of
116 children and 28 adults

Most killed on impact.
Some left to die in the thick sludge that engulfed them.
Crying out.
Calling for help.
Until voices fell silent.

Did you feel their pain that day?
Their suffering?
What if they had been your children?
They weren’t.
They were their’s.

Did you think there but for the grace of god?
Did you?
Humankind wept that day.
Nature had made a mistake.
A terrible one.

Did you stop believing in god and humanity that day
When you heard on the news of the passing of the buck?
The shying away from accountability.
No one wanted to be tarred with the deaths of children.
But they were.

Did you stop believing in god that day?

Many have wanted to visit the graves
Of those 116 children and 28 adults who died.
But very few want you there.
So please, I beg you, don’t go.
Let the village own their grief.

For no amount of time will ever erase the memory
Of the lives cruelly lost that day.
The innocent; as always, the victims.
Let their souls rest in peace.
Let their souls…

What further disasters will befall the helpless
As governments fail to stop the carnage?
When wealth and greed is all that matters.
When fortune favours the rich. The ‘Big Boys’.
When humanity is seen as collateral damage.

So, let me ask you the question one more time.
Did you stop believing in god that day?
Did you?
My uncle did.
My uncle stopped believing.

Auntie said he cried.
That day I learned something about him I never knew.
All those years I knew him.
I didn’t know he’d cried.
I never knew.