WHY DID A WEEKEND IN 2011 BRING BACK MEMORIES OF A TRAGIC WEEKEND IN 1934?

Miners remembered 77 years after Gresford disaster.

Four men who died in a Swansea Valley mine were remembered on the anniversary of one of Britain's worst colliery disasters - September 2011 marked the 77th anniversary of the Gresford Colliery Disaster.

Gresford Colliery Disaster Memorial

A commemorative service is held annually at the Gresford Colliery Memorial for those who had loved ones in the disaster. The Reverend Canon David Griffiths, who regularly conducts the Gresford services said “It’s a commemoration that says we’re not forgetting them. Upon those miners rests our heritage”,

Marking the date of the tragedy, 22^nd September 1934, when the explosion ripped through the Dennis Section, taking the lives of 266 men, last year's service was overshadowed by fresh shared sadness as the event took place just seven days after the Gleision mine flooded.

At the Gleision Colliery at Cilybebyll, Pontardawe, near Swansea, three miners managed to escape as water broke through a retaining wall, but, tragically, four remained trapped and their bodies were discovered the following day.

The four lost at Gleision, Charles Breslin, 62, Phillip Hill, 45, Garry Jenkins, 39, and David Powell, 50, were described as "four good brothers" by Reverend Griffiths as he prayed for the four and their families. They were remembered in the prayers, together with those lost in mining accidents worldwide.

Card and flowers remembering the Gleision victims
(Source BBC Wales Online)

“It’s so uncanny that it happened just before the anniversary,” Ruby McBurney, 79, from Gresford, told the Wrexham Evening Leader. She was paying her respects with her brothers William Henry Crump, 78, and Cyril Crump, 81, they, along with another sister, lost their father - also called William Henry Crump - in the 1934 tragedy. Ms McBurney placed a card at the Gresford memorial with a sprig of lily of the valley and a message reading: "In memory of the South Wales miners".

Vic Tyler-Jones, President of Llay Local History Society, was also amongst those at the service, and he told of how at their recent meeting it had been suggested that they show sympathy and support for the miner's families, and, accordingly a donation has been sent to the fund for relatives of the Gleision miners from the Llay Miners' Heritage Centre.

Another former miner Ted McKaye, from Gwersyllt, wanted, whilst commemorating the Gresford Disaster, to think about the families who were still “waiting at pit heads”. Mr McKaye is a former safety inspector with the National Union of Miners (NUM) who speaking of the Gleision tragedy questioned how it could happen in the 21^st century as he had though he would never have seen such an accident again believing they belong to the 19^th century.

He told the Wrexham Evening Leader, “Everybody here, especially old mining people will have felt the pain. One would think it would be unthinkable in this day and age”.

William Henry Crump and his family try to attend the Gresford memorial every year
(Source BBC Wales Online)

Another veteran miner Robert Alun Jones, 60. from Johnstown, who worked in the mining industry across the Wrexham area for more than 20 years, including Gresford, Bersham and Hafod – leaving the industry with the closure of Bersham Colliery in the late 1980's and who survived being buried alive more than 30 years ago expressed his intense sorrowfulness over the misfortune which hit the Gleision Colliery.

“I would like to send my condolences to everyone who has been affected by this disaster and also say God bless to all those who have been rescuers,” Mr Jones told the Wrexham Evening Leader continuing “as a miner you always feel distressed when colleagues are in trouble”.

The event reminded him of his own experiences in 1976 when he was buried, with three others, at Bersham Colliery, whilst working at the coalface under a fragile roof which caved in on top of them. They had to dig themselves out and scramble to safety.

He went on to tell the Evening Leader “In many ways to be a miner is very much like being a soldier in the army, you have to be tough. The general public should be aware of the dangers which miners face when they carry out their work.”

Reverend Canon David Griffiths said "four good brothers" were lost at Gleision
(Source BBC Wales Online)

A view shared with Canon Griffiths. Before joining the clergy, the Reverend Canon David Griffiths was himself a miner, training at Gresford and then working at Llay Main. His own great-grandfather died in a flooded mine in the 19th Century. This background clearly leads to a deep personal insight and personal empathy with mining families and miners their fears and worries. Mr Griffiths said: "Perhaps we ought to say to our government, 'It's time we made sure every workplace is as safe as it's humanly possible to be.'”

I spoke to Canon Griffiths to hear his reflections and thoughts on coal-mining and the issues surrounding it.

Reflecting on a sad event that, once again, reminds us of the true cost of coal – disaster, death and disease, Reverend Griffiths said "We have lost four good brothers and we certainly remember them in our prayers".

Yet many forget this expensive human cost, forget these deadly consequences, even forget the hard work and sacrifices of miners and their families.

Given the scale of the event it surprised me just how few people know of it, and, how even fewer, remember it. How many outside of North Wales remember it?  How many remember the Pike River mining disaster in New Zealand in which 29 miners died? How many have already forgotten the deaths at Gleison Colliery in South Wales last year?

Even so, the deaths and injuries sustained by miners from disasters such as Gresford, Pike River and Gleision almost pale into insignificance against the suffering endured by miners from the numerous debilitating and terminal occupational illnesses contracted just by doing their job.

Perhaps. because of the extensive global media coverage, people will remember the happier outcome of the Chilean miners for longer and in doing so, keep in mind the perils and dangers that miners face every time they clock on to work.

Remembering the 266 - Gresford Colliery Disaster Memorial