Songs about Aberfan (1966 mining disaster)

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan
From: Tig
Date: 03 Jan 06 - 05:15 PM

I'll not forget the day. I was doing my paper round that night looking at the pictures on the front pages - and thinking there were pit heaps (small ones, but big to me) in the woods behind our house. It scared me.

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan
From: Girl Friday
Date: 07 Jan 06 - 05:50 PM

Can't remember his mudcatter name, but Richard Phipps (Folkmob Eltham) was the official photographer for the disaster, and has written a cracking song about it.

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan
From: Girl Friday
Date: 06 Feb 06 - 05:06 PM

Fisheye has actually written one. Ask him.

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan
From: danensis
Date: 07 Feb 06 - 04:17 PM

Thorn Parrot writes "Pete Seeger sang the chorus of this song in London during the British news blackout (they were afraid news of the event might bring down the government)".

I seem to recall getting in from school at dinner time and finding my mother in tears listening to the radio. Where was this "news blackout"?

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan
From: GUEST,J C
Date: 08 Feb 06 - 02:58 PM

Grey October was first conceived during a songwriting session The Critics Group, a workshop run by MacColl I think orginally one of the key figures in the making of the song was Frankie Armstrong.
Everybody threw in ideas, including Ewan and Peggy, and the end result was the magnificent Grey October.
It can be heard on the Argo record, The Angry Muse (I think!)

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan
From: 12string growler
Date: 08 Feb 06 - 03:51 PM

You can find an absolutely wrenching version of "Close The Coalhouse Door" on "The Wilson Family Album" I recently bought a "NEW" copy on vinyl. It's on Harbourtown Records, Number HAR 020 released in 1991.
The Wilsons are a Family group from the North East of England and they do almost all their stuf A Capella. Real Meaty harmonies and mega powerful voices. I caught them at the Gainsborough Folk Festival in October 2005. "Sooz" may have contact details for them.

Chris

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan
From: GUEST,J C
Date: 09 Feb 06 - 04:35 AM

PS The original idea for Grey October came from BBC producer Charles Parker

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan
From: GUEST,helen Pentecost
Date: 14 Oct 06 - 01:53 PM

I remember a song that used to go something like

Aberfan, Aberfan will we ever understand
Aberfan, aberfan we gave a helping hand
We'll never let
The world forget
the star(scar?) of aberfan

It goes on to sing about
Where grown men cried without wipping their eyes.

Anyone heard it? Can't for the life of me remeber what it was called or who sang it.

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan
From: Zany Mouse
Date: 14 Oct 06 - 02:09 PM

This brings back memories! The day it happened a few friends and I sat in a pub in Yorkshire (very under-aged at 14) and talked about the tragedy. We all lived in the heart of the West Riding coal fields and really felt for the poor sods in the village. My mum, although a Yorkshire woman, spent her childhood in Methyr, which is almost next door, so this felt particularly close to home.

We decided we would do something about it and hitched down to Wales but were sent away again as 'mere kids'. Sad, as we were full of energy and the diggers were getting tired. We did manage to help a little bit by serving tea but it wasn't enough. We just left feeling useless and, for some reason, guilty.

Rhiannon

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan
From: richd
Date: 14 Oct 06 - 02:41 PM

Can I just shamelessly plug a book called 'Aberfan- Our Hiraeth an anthology in poetry prose and pictures' produced by the Aberfan and Merthyr Vale Writers and History Group, and published in Aberfan by the Aberfan and Merthyr Vale Commmunity Co-operative. ('Hiraeth' means love and longing for home in Welsh.)Its full of stuff, not only about the Disaster but the story of the village before and after. Lots of poems and songs about the village, most written people who live there.

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan
From: GUEST,ibo
Date: 14 Oct 06 - 08:18 PM

I lost my faith the day the slag heap swamped that school.I fear we may be on our own down here.

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan
From: Leadfingers
Date: 15 Oct 06 - 06:36 AM

Fortieth Anniversary next weekend !! I will no doubt be singing Bernie Fairlamb's song !!

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan
From: eddie1
Date: 15 Oct 06 - 07:46 AM

Re the song "Grey October, it seems to be accepted that it was written by the Critics Group though I'm sure I saw it in a magazine as written by Peggy Seeger and Jack Warshaw. (Don't remember where – it was 40 years ago.)
GREY OCTOBER - comp Charles Parker & Critics Group 1966 -- Ewan MacCOLL with Peggy SEEGER (gtr) "The Angry Muse": ARGO ZFB-65 1968 http://www.folktrax.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/menus/search%20for%20titles_grei_gyz.htm

Title: Grey October
Composer(s)/Lyricist(s): Critics Group
Source(s): Sing Out! Magazine, Aug/Sept. 1968
www.SJLibrary.org

Whoever wrote it, a great song. I still find it difficult to sing. I guess the only other single event to have affected me so deeply was the Dunblane shooting.

I do remember some unbelievable things like collected money being used to help clear the slag that the Coal Board was responsible for!

Eddie

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan
From: bradfordian
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 06:13 PM

So there were 7 or 8 songs relating to Aberfan event & no doubt several poems including the one in the other thread. There seems to be 3 recordings that one can obtain now, but suprisingly not Grey October, unless anyone knows differently.

Palaces of Gold (Leon Rosselson) RosselSonGs compilation Here Released 1990

Aberfan Coal Tip Tragedy (Thom Parrott)Best Of Broadside 1962-1968 Here

Aberfan (Robin Jones) Here

Aberfan (Bernie Fairlamb) (refer to 'catter Leadfingers)

Grey October (The Critics et al) I seem to be having difficulty finding a current recording of this one apart from "The Angrey Muse"

Aberfan (Dave Collins) The words are in the "Songs about Aberfan" thread, but don't know about any recordings

Aberfan (Dave Ackles) Don't know if anyone has come across this one.

40th Anniversary; maybe a missed opportunity here!

Bradfordian

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan
From: bradfordian
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 06:23 PM

PS See this thread for NON MUSIC comments

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan
From: Andy Jackson
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 06:55 PM

When I first moved to Wales in the early eighties I went, of course, to the Llantrisant Folk Club. On one of the first nights there Siwsi George sang a song about Aberfan. It was in Welsh, but Siws told the story of the song. I still tingle when I remember the effect of Siwsi's wonderful voice. What an introduction to the sung Welsh. Siwsi was the generation that lost so many, and even as an Englishman it was a powerful memory from my childhood.
Sadly Siws is with us no more, but I cherish her friendship and for showing me such beauty in her Language.

I have racked my brain for more details of the song but I am not in Wales at the moment to check my recordings.
Any ideas, are you there Dr Price, Splottman?

Andy

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan
From: GUEST,tim readman
Date: 27 Oct 06 - 11:28 PM

Does anybody know the chords for Close The Coalhouse Door? If so please let me know. If you could send them to me that would be fantastic.

Subject: Lyr Add: ABERFAN (Kyle Aughe)
From: GUEST,Timo_Tuokkola
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 05:18 PM

Just thought I'd add the lyrics to a Great Song I heard by Kyle Aughe form his CD "Not against my own".

Aberfan

'Twas the twenty-first of October, on a foggy Friday morn
And the children sang things beautiful and bright
Their fathers dug the coal beneath the mountainside above
And grew the tip that shattered all their lives

For years the townsfolk worried of the spring beneath Merthr Vale
Could it someday bring the slag upon the town?
And on that fateful morning in the mining south of Wales
Five hundred thousand tons came raining down

CHORUS: On Aberfan, a hundred sixteen children, Aberfan
So cruel a fate to will them
There'll be no consolation for the coal board's washed their hands
Of the blood of those young children in the town
Of Aberfan

They heard a distant rumble and it soon became a roar
So quickly that they had no time to flee
The parents and the miners dug frantically in vain
Through tears that made it difficult to see

The crown and her tribunal and the coal board had their say
Empty words that fell on deafened ears
New rules and regulations are not the prime concern
When you're burying a child of seven years. CHORUS

Since that day my father's never mined an ounce of coal
For he lost a son and daughter in the slide
He sees my brother James and sister Margaret in my eyes
The torment and the grief will not subside

Most days the memory lingers sometimes it starts to fade
Till you see the hollow faces in a crowd
And it brings back the resignation; 'twill never go away
A generation lost beneath a shroud. CHORUS

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan
From: GUEST,spb=cooperator
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 06:48 PM

I have on vynle - somewhere a superb song by Mabsant

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan
From: Andy Jackson
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 05:46 AM

That'll be the one I mentiond back in Oct 06 (see a few messages back)

Hope you find it.

Andy

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan
From: GUEST,OldNicKilby
Date: 16 Jul 08 - 05:34 AM

The finest song about Aberfan that I have heard is by Greg Hastings who lives in Perth West Australia.I will admit to crying when he sang it at Fairbridge Festival, for me it was something very special as two weeks after Aberfan I was teaching in a school that was hit by a whirlwind and we were digging children out until the Fire Brigade arrived ,the best part of 30 mins.
You could always try Greg for the words

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan
From: GUEST,Dougieb
Date: 02 Aug 08 - 09:07 AM

I wrote a song about the Aberfan disaster just after it happened, and sung it at many folk clubs around the west of England, it was recorded on a tape but is now on a CD, I do not sing very much now due to my age, but if anyone would like a copy free please reply to this message and I will return with an E mail address.

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan
From: mark gregory
Date: 03 Aug 08 - 04:42 AM

Grey October is on another mudcat thread

see

http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=57432#903040

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan
From: Dougieb
Date: 04 Aug 08 - 03:48 PM

My song about the Aberfan disaster can also be abtained from Mudcat records, or Dick Greenhaus at Camsco records.

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 04 Aug 08 - 05:42 PM

Dougie, I'd be interested. A tape would be fine. Could you please eMail me: skw at freenet dot de? Thank you.

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan
From: Dougieb
Date: 05 Aug 08 - 04:24 PM

Hi susanne, Thank you for your kind interest in my song on Aberfan, if you would forward me an address I will post the cd to you asap.
many thanks.   Dougie.

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 05 Aug 08 - 07:12 PM

Sorry, I managed to overlook you've become a member. I'll send you a PM.

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 06 Aug 08 - 04:43 AM

The Strawbs - or as they were then - The Strawberry Hill Boys - used to sing one about Aberfan, which I remember as very powerful. I think written by Dave Cousins. Wish I could remember more about it.

The song is Not All the Flowers Grow, in which our intrepid songwriter seems to imply the school was buried by a coal seam...

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan
From: Dougieb
Date: 16 Sep 08 - 04:10 PM

Thank you for your interest in songs of Aberfan, my song written just after the terrible disaster can also be obtained from mp3.com/dougieb

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan
From: GUEST,philip thomas survivor of aberfan
Date: 12 Jan 09 - 04:26 PM

i found this site very touching. i never new so many songs had been written about aberfan. the only song i was ever told about was the beegees song. its hard to believe how many people thought of us .thank you i was one of the lucky ones who survived.

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan
From: GUEST,Stuart Reed
Date: 28 Jan 09 - 09:31 PM

Grey October was also recorded by the Brighton Taverners on their first EP.

I could email an mp3 if anyone is interested.

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Feb 09 - 07:29 PM

Gosh,that's the song I'm looking for and I don't know the artist...it was so touching.

Annette
[e-mail]

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan
From: Greenm
Date: 17 Mar 09 - 09:43 AM

I am constantly attempting to recover songs I have actually performed in the past, one of which was back inthe mid sixties shortly after the Aberfan disaster. A member of a group I was involved with (the free folk) Phil (can't remember his second name) who was a teacher asked his class to think about the disaster and how they feel about that fact that it was a school just like theirs. One pupil wrote a poem which Phil put to music and as I remember it was one of the most moving songs I have ever encountered.

A slim chance I know, but does anyone out there remember hearing this song or even more unlikely have the words & music. This all took place in Eccles, Manchester where with the Free Folk (Stewart, Ewan & Phil) we started a Folk Club in the Cross Keys (and later moved on to the Duke of York).

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan
From: GUEST,Angela Suprano
Date: 25 Jun 09 - 11:48 PM

I had a song about Aberfan on tape, and wish I could find it. So I would appreciate you mailing me with the lyrics, or posting here, if you're still receiving these messages? Don't know if I have to join this forum? But you can email me at An9ila(AT)gmail.com if you would?

If you make the title of the mail 'Aberfan' I'll know it's not spam.

Thanking you in advance,

Angela.

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan
From: GUEST,Angela Suprano
Date: 26 Jun 09 - 12:06 AM

Just to add a little more info' to my last post, this group/individual sounded very sort of 70's style alike many did then, and of the Beatles type style. All I can remember of the lyrics is that toys were sent to the children, and millions of toys were of no use, plus it was very critical of the council and organisers of Aberfan. Very moving song. I think I taped it onto an old Phillips 4 inch reeled machine off a vinal record, and Aberfan was on the B side?

Angela.

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan
From: Ms Mouse
Date: 26 Jun 09 - 12:11 AM

I've joined the site now too. :)

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan (1966 mining disaster)
From: GUEST,Gethin
Date: 03 Nov 09 - 04:34 PM

Ican recall this song and it was sung by Bryn Yemm, I have searched for this song for years but had no luck.
I hope this solves a problem for you.

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan (1966 mining disaster)
From: GUEST
Date: 19 May 10 - 05:28 AM

I found it eventually after 10 years search. Would have helped of course if my alzheimer's had let me remember the Artist. The artist was Mike Hart - Album = 'Bleeds.' The two songs I had in my mind on that album were 'Aberfan,' and 'Almost Liverpool 8.' So happy to have found it at last! :)

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan (1966 mining disaster)
From: GUEST
Date: 20 May 10 - 04:47 AM

Search endeth!

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan (1966 mining disaster)
From: GUEST,jack Warshaw
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 09:49 AM

As far as I can remember, Grey October started at a Critics Group songwriting session at Ewan and Peg's house. Everyone had heard of Aberfan, but few had news of the bombing of a school in Thuydan, Vietnam in which scores of children were killed. We were deeply committed to opposing the war. The idea arose to link the two events. Several of the group, including me, contributed lyrics and suggested melodies. Peggy came back next session with the final melody. It's still a haunting song I think. Glad it was recorded and is still remembered. Sometimes powerful songs fade because they could not be commercially distributed. Compare, for example, Neil Young's "Ohio" with my much more explicit "Kent State Massacre" - one got mass distribution, the other only made it to a "protest" label.

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan (1966 mining disaster)
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Jul 10 - 11:02 AM

"Fields of Athenry" sung by Welsh singer Christine Lee Jones.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTT2G-xjGCY

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan (1966 mining disaster)
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Jul 10 - 11:11 AM

Another song " The Price of Coal " sung by Welsh singer Paul Child

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FV9px05ugp0

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan (1966 mining disaster)
From: Larry The Radio Guy
Date: 05 Jul 10 - 01:07 PM

Suibhan: I have the lp "Five and Dime" by David Ackles, with the song "Aberfan" on it. And I have a working turntable. If you (or anyone else) really want the lyrics, I can listen to it and write them down and post them (I don't think they lyrics are on the liner--but if they are it would make it easier).

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan (1966 mining disaster)
From: GUEST,Nathan Collins
Date: 25 Oct 10 - 12:28 PM

I found your thread about Aberfan songs and poems. You mention my dad (Dave Collins) who wrote a song many years ago called 'Aberfan'. He has been playing it in the folk clubs of Nottingham since I was a child.
I have just uploaded it to youtube with a small video montage:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLNSLjeGm3g

Let me know what you think

Nathan Collins

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan (1966 mining disaster)
From: Leadfingers
Date: 25 Oct 10 - 01:17 PM

Dave Collins U Tube

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan (1966 mining disaster)
From: GUEST,Warwick Slade
Date: 26 Oct 10 - 06:42 AM

Probably one of the best,if not the best, song about Aberfan was written by Colin Wilkie. I heard it sung by Jack King but, unfortunatly, I do not have a copy of the song.

Subject: Lyr Add: MORNING (Colin Wilkie)
From: GUEST,Colin Wilkie
Date: 26 Oct 10 - 08:14 AM

Thanks for the friendly comments, Warwick.

I wrote two songs about Aberfan,but only "Morning" was really satisfying. Shirley sang it on album we made for the German company "pläne "back in 1972. The LP was called "Morning" and has now been re-released as a double CD in tandem with another LP we made around the same time called "Outside The City " ( My apologies for all that self publicity, but it does outline the details).

The words are as follows:
                                 
The early morning, the mist is drifting
D                      C       D F#m
Across the autumn coloured leaves.
Em         A               D
The cattle low upon the hillside,
D                      F#m D
And turn, like shadows, through the trees.
Em             A                   D

The dark clouds move above the valley,
Slowly, as the morning breaks.
The small birds chatter in the treetops,
And the sleeping village wakes.

The drizzling rain falls on the houses
In the hollow of the hills,
It splashes from the roofs and doorways,
And trickles down the window sills.

The church clock chimes the passing quarters,
And, to the early morning sound,
The chink of bottles add their echoes,
As the milkman makes his round.

Wives are setting breakfast tables,
Eggs are sizzling in the pan,
The shirt-sleeved men their tea are drinking,
As life goes on in Aberfan.

Thanks again for your interest.
D'you know what happened to Jack ? We lost contact some 30 or so years ago.

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan (1966 mining disaster)
From: richd
Date: 26 Oct 10 - 12:48 PM

Never been to Aberfan have you?

It's a Welsh mining village. Never been a church with a bell ringing the quarters there. Just a pit hooter at shift change. The hills are sheep country and the valley was urban and heavily industrialised and noisy.

It's not a song 'about' Aberfan. It's a song about what you think Aberfan might posibly be/have been like. Nothing wrong with that- but its not a song about Aberfan. Most of the others aren't either.

Best song about Aberfan is Calon Lan or maybe Guide me o thou Great Jehovah.


These things matter.

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan (1966 mining disaster)
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 26 Oct 10 - 02:24 PM

100

Subject: RE: Songs about Aberfan (1966 mining disaster)
From: bobad
Date: 26 Oct 10 - 04:12 PM

Thom Parrott's "The Aberfan Coal Tip Tragedy" as performed by Raymond Crooke.