Liverpool opinions
Once there was a way - Aberfan and corporate terrorism
By John Williams
In the immediate aftermath of the murderous assault on New York's civilian population George Bush was conspicuously incognito because the security services had deemed it advisable that he stay out of range of any terrorists. I don't want to criticise him, but I couldn't help remembering the time when I literally bumped into the then British Prime Minister, who was on foot and wasn't protected by so much as a shin pad, much less body armour.
It was on October 21 1966, and I was just popping out to buy some cigarettes in the only shop on the Skelmersdale housing estate where I was living, after temporarily taking leave of both Liverpool and my senses. As I turned a corner I had to stop suddenly as Harold Wilson, accompanied by a single solitary detective, almost knocked me over. He made a quick apology before hurrying on grim faced to a waiting car. He had just heard the awful news which was being hymned from the Welsh valleys about a disaster at a tiny village called Aberfan, where a criminally neglected slag ridden moutain had collapsed and engulfed the school building, killing 116 children and five of their teachers and twenty three other adults.
Harold looked visibly and unquestionably ill, quite unlike today's made up politicians, who all seem to be so well versed in the art of affecting instant sorrow.
As the awful news settled over the world like a pall, television crews headed into Wales, a country long accustomed to mining related tragedies. That night as I joined the millions of stricken Britons I witnessed not only the death of scores of innocents but the birth of the intrusive news media, a phenomenon that plagues us still.
Imagine the scene. Thousands of tons of slurry had ripped through a school like a filthy tsunami, drowning everything in its path. It was dark as the television crews milled about the scene of the carnage and a bewildered looking man was staring at the ground stirring the rubble with his foot. A television reporter approached him and snapped,
"And what are you doing here!"
With unbelievable dignity the man answered simply,
"My mother is down there somewhere."
The reporter was stunned into absolute silence. I suppose nowadays he would have been trained to ask the bereaved man that egregious and insulting question,
"How does it feel.......?"
The modern term for that scene of horror, employed most recently at New York, is 'Ground zero', and only today I read that the bereaved firemen of New York were so enraged at the decision to scale down the body recovery programme that they fought a pitched battle on what is in fact a graveyard, because they are afraid that from now on the bodies of the dead will remain lost as they are simply scooped up by the dumpsters. Is there no sentiment in business whatsoever?
The people who allowed Aberfan to die in a deluge of neglect and lies are really no different to the El Quaida thugs who buried innocents in New York.