The mine and the line: Part 2 - the disaster at Senghenydd
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- Опубликовано: 2 авг 2024
- The story of the two mine disasters at Senghenydd, the aftermath and the memorial to the men, and boys, who died in those tragic events.
With thanks to the Aber Valley Heritage Museum
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Thanks for both your videos of the Senghenydd railway branch . An excellent piece of heritage work .
Thanks for that Bob. Very moving, they should teach this in schools not just in former mining communities. The families of the rescue teams must be very proud.
Agree with that. It had a devastating effect on the community and I would imagine the rescue teams would have felt a mixture of pride and horror.
Just subscribed, Bob. Thank you for your video. Very informative. It's important to keep our history and heritage alive.
Narrated in such a way one could not fail to be moved. I did not know about the 1901 disaster only the 1913 one. Thank you for making this video it is a story so worth telling and one that needs to be kept alive.
Thank you, that comment means a lot to me. I was concerned I was a bit too flat. I learnt so much making this as well. I didn't know about the 1901 incident until I visited the garden. That was one of the reasons I wanted to make the video
@@bobsrailrelics Bob your very welcome, glad my comment hit the right note. I would never have guessed that you did not know about the 1901 disaster either. Take care.
A moving tribute, thank you. My grandfather was a miner at the Universal, but was not underground at the time. He died young of miner’s lung (pneumoconiosis) before I ever knew him. My grandmother lived on in Senghenydd until she died. I remember as a child watching the spoil from the mine at Aber being tipped on the top of the mountain and the locomotives shunting coal tracks up the valley.
There was an enquiry into the disaster which did not really answer the question of cause. For convenience the most likely cause was deemed to be a spark from a communication bell system which had had an extra battery added to make it work, but even in a laboratory this could only just be made to produce a spark. The pattern of the explosion was also not a perfect fit for this. A minority view blamed a rock fall breaking a safety lamp. Whichever, the real culprit was the vast amount of coal dust in the mine which was lifted by the initial blast and in turn resulted in a massive dust explosion.
There was an outcry at the initial fine on the owners, and this was somewhat increased. As you say, the mine manager took the brunt; despite being described by the enquiry as capable and diligent. The fines were for technical breaches of regulations (for example, a requirement to be able to reverse fans for ventilation was not met) but these did not contribute to the cause of the explosion nor the horrific consequences.
Neither my grandmother, my father or my uncle ever mentioned the disaster to me in their lifetimes. What they did tell me was that my grandfather swore his sons would never need to go down the pit.
Thank you for this reponse. It is interesting how many people would never enter the pits after disasters such as this one, but they still managed to find people to reopen it. The book I mentioed in the video covers the inquest in some depth and as you say, was certainly not blamed by the locals for what happened. Its a terrible chapter in the lives of the Welsh valleys and hopefully one we will never see the likes of again.
Bob that was a stunning video, I grew up in Llanbradach many of my family were miners, big strong chaps full of stories and laughter, all were only too aware of the danger but they needed the pit owners money to survive.
They had many stories of loss and the pit owners love of money, one being they felt the loss of pit ponies more than men because ponies cost money to replace.
The owner of Univ was fined something like 50 quid (!) for not having safety measures like being able to reverse the fan to stop feeding the pit fire with air.
2013 the orginal steam whistle from the univ belted out its awful sound at the time of the explosion.
Awful work fir the miners and I am sure the they would not be sad to see the pits have gone.
The book I mentioned had details of the fines and ironically it was the pit manager, the one who was down there fighting the fires, who bore the brunt of the fines. The whole thing was a scandal. Thank you for watching, I am glad you enjoyed it.
Excellent tribute Bob, very moving. Tracing my family history I discovered that my grandparents moved from Troedyrhiw to Abertridwr in September 1913, just a couple of weeks before the disaster. I don’t know if my grandfather was working at the Windsor pit or at Universal, as quite o lot of Abertridwr men were employed there as well. Either way he must have wondered what he had taken on. When the Great War broke out ten months later, he was one of the first to sign up in Abertridwr. What tough lives they led back then.
My dad was a coal miner at Merthyr Vale colliery - which of course was the mine responsible for the Aberfan Disaster - all his working life and Senghenydd loomed large for both our and all mining communities, even into the 1980s, when the South Wales coalfield was closed down.
A very well made and judged piece, delivered with the respect and sensitivity the events it deserve.
Thank you. I often hear ex miners talk about the brotherhood they experienced in the pits. However the danger, injuries and loss of life were horrendous. Thank you for watching, I am glad I pitched it right.
I used to have a job that would place me down in the valleys quite often, Aberdare, Pontypridd etc. The one day I was talking to a chap in Ponty, and the Aberfan disaster got mentioned, and he told that that whilst most people knew of Aberfan, and these who lost their lives there, mainly at the school, very few people knew about the Senghenydd disaster, even though it was much larger. I will admit that at that time I never knew about it either, but since I have stopped going down that way with work , I have looked it up, and only two years ago I travelled from the West Midlands for a day, to visit the Garden of Remembrance at Aberfan, and the onto Senghenydd, to look at the memorial and the remaining rail paths that can still be made out on the pit site. A touching day out for both venues.
Aberfan touched people because of the children, and I will admit, their graves moved me enormously. However, as you say, so many people were affected by both disasters and looking at the graveyards around the valley, it hit so many people. Thank you for watching and commenting
Knowing where it was, I visited the ruins of the school (Garden of Remembrance) and that was touching, even though some of those walls were rebuilt for use as the memorial. After that, I went up to the cemetery, but only stayed just inside the entrance, as I could see the gravestone clearly enough from there, but saying that, they are visible from the other side of the valley anyway. On watching some documentaries about the disaster, some local residents have said that although people are welcome to visit the area to pay respects, they did not want it to become a tourist attraction. With that in mind, I did not go to the graves.@@bobsrailrelics
Thank you for creating a respectful and thoughtful video. By chance we were in Cardiff on the day of the memorial garden opening, so we took a detour on the way home to visit it later in the day. It is still well kept, and a sobering place to visit. There is also a memorial in the school grounds, in the form of a smaller version of the pithead gear, that was there before the memorial garden was created.
Regarding the railway, there is a bridge slightly further up the valley that takes the road over it up to the terraces of houses on the hill, and you can see it better if you pull into the bus turning area. On the NLS OS 6" 1888-1913 map the railway seems to stop short of here before the houses were built, and links with a tramroad coming down from the west, but Rail Map online shows a line ending just past the bridge, which seems very odd that a bridge was built for a railway that only went a few more yards?
I plan to look at that as I have seen this on Google maps. I think it may have been for a tramway taking spoil to the coal tip. Keep an eye out, it's on my long list.
Thank you so much for that moving tribute. Having grown up in Cardiff in the 60s and early 70s i was not aware of ever being told of the disaster. Turned out a work collegue in Plymouth came from Sengenydd and he told me about the disasters. I expect it was not in the authorities interest to make people aware of the huge numbers killed over the years to keep the country running.
It is horrific how many people died plus all the injuries. Thank you for watching
Great video
Good film Bob. I agree with your comment when people say reopen the pits. I assume the majority of the dead are still down there.
Not that many, they managed to bring a lot of the bodies out. I was told it is about 30 they were unable to get to. The graveyards in the valley are filled with graves from the disaster
Hi i used to live in station terrace no,5 surname of Evans , now live in dorset where we moved to for work june 1977 ,
Very moving Bob. Thank you.
I hope the pit owners were ruined by both disasters, but I suspect not. The calendar turns but some things don't change. Union Carbide never paid up proper dollar for Bhopal either.
Reminds me that labour has to organise and fight for, sometimes, their lives. Thanks again ❤
No problems. The Lewis family did very well out of their mines, and there were little, if any come back on them after the disaster in 1913.
Nope, the pit owners were fined £10 with £5 costs. Leading to the (in)famous newspaper headline "Miners lives at 1s 1d each" (modern day equivalent about 5.5p).
Well done on another great video .. do you have an actual copy of the underground workings at Senghenydd, I've been trying to get a copy for ages my great Grandfather has a heading named after him in the Ladysmith district
The only copy I have is the one on Wikipedia which I used in the video. The Aber Valley Heritage Centre may have more. They have a website. The image is here: commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Senghenydd_Explosion_Report_map.jpeg
And this is the museum www.abervalleyheritage.co.uk/aber-valley-heritage-museum/
@@bobsrailrelics thanks i'll give them a try
Very respectful, Bob. I lived in Bargoed for three years. I never went to Senghenydd, but it is definitely still on my bucket list, at age 67. So I was only there for a short while, but it gave me an enduring respect for both miners and South Walians. I can only hope that with the advent of the Metro, more outsiders will visit the valleys. It is such an interesting area. Obviously you probably don't want to fixate too much on sad topics, but I reckon you might also want to pay a visit to Aberfan. I visited the cemetery there not long after the terrible event. I also remember what I was doing that day. We passed through the Elan Valley and it tilted down all morning. Eventually, we travelled from Brecon to Dowlais Top, where they were building the Heads of the Valleys Road, which meant that the mess of Dowlais became an even bigger mess. We saw loads of rescue squad and mine rescue trucks on their way to Aberfan. That's why I will always remember Dowlais Top as a rather bleak place.