Coal mining, iron and steel works were of extreme importance to Welsh industries during the 1960s. According to Leon Gooberman in Depression to Devotion, 9.7% of the Welsh population worked in the steel industry by 1969, compared to 2.5% in the whole of the UK. By 1913, the town of Barry, located in the Vale of Glamorgan, was the largest coal exporting port in the world, followed by Cardiff, the Welsh capital at the time. Abbey Steelworks in Port Talbot was Europe’s largest steelworks factory and Wales’ largest employer. Areas such as Port Talbot and Merthyr Tydfil were the hub for industry in Wales.
As a result of the collapse 144 people died, 116 of them children. This was largely due to the destruction of Pantglas Junior school. Attempts were made to rescue children who were still alive and to recover bodies. This was a combined effort from the residents of Aberfan including miners and parents. Yvonne Price, a police officer described how “some had no skin on their hands” from digging through the wreckage. Ultimately 10 children were retrieved from under the debris alive and a further 26 sustained injuries. The process of identifying bodies then began. Additionally, the disaster also resulted in psychological and emotional damage to the survivors and the bereaved, as well as to the people of Aberfan as a whole. Many children experienced survivors’ guilt which has affected them to this day, as well as post-traumatic stress disorder. These impacts were not well understood or handled at the time.
At the start of the 1960s there was increasing concern that the Welsh language would go extinct. According to Dylan Phillips by the beginning of the 1960s, the Welsh language was on average losing one speaker every ninety minutes, having lost a quarter of a million speakers since the start of the 20th century. This prompted many in Wales towards efforts to ensure its preservation, particularly in Aberystwyth.
