The Rev Canon Dr Jennifer Smith - 21/10/2026

Available for over a year

Sixty years ago this morning, the Revd Irving Penberthy was on his way somewhere else when he saw emergency vehicles turning in towards Aberfan. He was minister at the Methodist Chapel in the village – with care for dozens of the children who died that morning as water-logged coal slurry engulfed their junior school. Revd Penberthy has recalled the insistent thought as he drove past the junction to Aberfan: ‘You must turn back, you must turn back.’ He did turn back, to find miners brought up from underground frantically digging in the muck where the school had been, and people together in the streets in shock as they came to understand what had happened. Today, the King and Queen, with the Prince of Wales, will be in Aberfan to mark 60 years since the disaster. 116 children and 28 adults died. Though questions linger about the clean-up of industrial sites, for me today is first about the thought of children just sat down to their lessons, taken unaware by crushing darkness. Our hearts should break again as we listen also to the bereaved families and survivors, men and women now of older years. On that first day in 1966, a BBC television reporter asked Revd Penberthy, ‘What can a man of God do?’ He was honest in response: ‘…Well I will admit that I am bewildered…all I can say is that I will be able to give comfort… because there is a storm of sorrow about to break on this village.’ Over the next days he would do just that, helping weeping fathers identify children, praying in people’s homes, offering practical support. Aberfan has had a long legacy. The thing is, this tragedy did not have to happen. As many other tragedies today do not have to happen. Jesus offered more than comfort in suffering: his compassion meant real change, a better life for all. As the Psalmist says, ‘we believe we will see the goodness of God in the land of the living.’ How we build a bridge or design a data centre is as much a matter of justice today as a wrongly-placed slurry mound ever was. Conscience and compassion are not just the property of religious people, thank God. I am convinced we can all listen for the voice that says, ‘you must turn back,’ and respond. Maybe even before a crisis becomes a tragedy. We may not all live in a close-knit community like Aberfan, but we are all part of the heart break over the loss of these children, then and now. May our compassion grow ever stronger, our care for one another ever more resolved, as we remember.