Aberfan Disaster’s Final Survivor Recalls the Tragedy That Haunted Queen Elizabeth II

Sixty years ago, Jeff Edwards OBE began October 21, 1966, like any other morning in the small South Wales mining village of Aberfan.

He stopped at a tuck shop with his best friend, Robert, to buy some favourite sweets — pink shrimps, flying saucers and sherbet — before making his way to school for the final day before half-term.

Neither boy could have known that the day would end with the deaths of 144 people, including 116 children, in what would become one of the worst industrial disasters in British history.

The tragedy began high above the village at around 7.30am, when a coal tip subsided by roughly 10ft. Coal bosses were not informed until 9am because there were no telephone lines on the mountain and a worker had to walk to deliver the message. By then, the tip had sunk a further 10ft.

Just 15 minutes later, coal tip No. 7 collapsed. An estimated 150,000 tons of slurry surged down the mountainside, engulfing Pantglas Junior School, where 240 pupils and their teachers were gathered, as well as 19 homes on Moy Road.

Jeff, who was eight at the time, was returning books to a shelf closest to the coal tip when he heard a loud “rumbling sound”. His teacher reassured him and the other pupils that it was only “thunder”.

Moments later, after three weeks of heavy rain, darkness swept through the classroom.

Jeff later awoke beneath the wreckage to the sound of screams and shouting, with a dead girl resting against his shoulder.

His survival came down to chance. A small pocket of air enabled him to breathe, while rescuers were able to locate him after spotting his distinctive blond hair.

Queen Elizabeth later remembered him as “the little boy with the blond hair”. She visited Aberfan eight days after the disaster, a decision that was described as the biggest regret of her 70-year reign.

“I woke up with this material all over me,” he told the Daily Mail. “The roof had come down. I was buried with a desk pressed against my stomach and a dead girl on my shoulder.

“I was very lucky. The reason I survived was that there was a pocket of air around me, which meant I was able to breathe.

“When the fire service entered the classroom, they saw my blond hair and began clearing the material away. Eventually, they freed me from the desk.”

Firefighter Roy Thomas was the man who pulled Jeff from the rubble, making him the last child recovered alive. As desperate villagers spent hours searching for their loved ones, hopes of finding further survivors faded. No one else was rescued alive after Jeff.

“I had injuries to my head and stomach, but those wounds healed over time. The psychological injury — the trauma — is something I will carry with me until the end of my life.

“Survivor’s guilt is a huge thing,” he said tearfully. “It is difficult because the distance between life and death can be a matter of inches. You ask yourself why you survived when others did not.

“I think that has been the driving force behind my efforts to make life better for people in the community.”

‘Myself, David, Gaynor and others have wanted to make it a better place, to reflect those opportunities that those people who lost their lives didn’t have.

‘And to also give children of this generation aspiration in terms of saying that they can achieve anything they want. They are really going to be the custodians of this story.

Reflecting on events ahead of today’s anniversary, including a visit from the Japanese ambassador, Hiroshi Suzuki, he added: ‘Each event obviously brings greater emotion as we get nearer the 21st.’

The Queen, who remembered him as the ‘boy with blond hair’ during a Buckingham Palace visit decades later, maintained a close bond with the coal mining village of Aberfan.

Throughout her reign, she visited several times and later gave a personal donation to the Aberfan and Merthyr Vale Youth and Community project, which later received the Golden Jubilee Award.

The initiative, of which the late Queen was ‘very supportive’, was co-founded by Jeff to support locals after he saw a rise in drug and alcohol use in the area in the decades that followed the disaster.

‘Lots of young people who traditionally went into the mining industry were unemployed because of the colliery closures, were stealing cars and were buying alcohol and drugs to alleviate the hopelessness of both of their lives,’ he explained.

In 1997, she also insisted on altering her schedule to go to the village while on an official visit to Merthyr Tydfil. She made her final visit for Aberfan in 2012 when she opened Ynysowen Community Primary School.

The Queen’s former secretary, Lord Charteris, previously revealed he felt he had given the monarch poor advice to ‘stay away [from Aberfan] until the preliminary shock had worn off’.

However, when she arrived in the mining village in its darkest hour, she was met with respect and adoration by locals as she became ‘really upset’ and ‘had to compose herself’ before meeting those who had lost loved ones.

‘If she’d come on the day, it would have impeded the rescue process because any royal visit does have an entourage with it; I think she came at the right time,’ Jeff said. 

‘She was really upset; she started to get tears in her eyes when Councillor Jim Williams’s granddaughter presented her the posy, which was inscribed from the surviving children.’

But amid the fallout of the disaster, there was little justice for the community, although a national tribunal found the ‘blame for the disaster rest[ed] upon the National Coal Board’ due to a failure to manage piles of waste safely.

However, not one person was prosecuted – or even demoted following the disaster.

The community did eventually recover, but mostly due to its resilience and mutual support from its own residents, including the Aberfan Wives Group and the Male Voice Choir, Mr Edwards explained.

‘What brought the community together really is the injustice of the tip removal, the decision of the coal board to prolong the inquiry.

‘It brought community cohesion together and built resilience to face the difficulties they faced at that time.

‘It was a mining community that has suffered injustices, focused on the need to do things.’

Ahead of the 60th anniversary of the disaster, a shocking report revealed that around one in ten families in Wales are still living near ‘high risk’ coal tips that are becoming increasingly unsafe due to the impacts of climate change.

There are 2,589 disused coal tips scattered throughout Wales, hundreds of which have been labelled Category C and D, requiring more frequent monitoring because they pose a higher risk.

In January 2025, an FOI request by BBC Wales found 13 coal tips had been upgraded to a higher risk category since November 2022, with 11 of those upgraded to the most serious categories – C and D.

Fresh concerns arose in November 2024, after Storm Bert sparked a ‘washout of a former coal tip’ in Cwmtillery, Blaenau Gwent, forcing residents to leave their homes and stay in a leisure centre overnight.

That same year, the UK government pledged £25million to Welsh coal tip safety for 2025-26 as well as further funding of £39.3million a year until 2029.

A new report has revealed that more than 130,000 households in Wales are close to coal tips, which pose a risk to public safety amid fears of the consequences of extreme weather such as heavy rain in the area.

Sofie Jenkinson, co-director of Round Our Way, told The Mirror: ‘Wales powered the Industrial Revolution but people are still living with the consequences.’

Next April, a new Disused Tips Authority is set to be formed to monitor and evaluate every single tip in terms of stability, a move described by Mr Edwards as ‘a huge step forward’.

However, he remained critical of the amount of time taken for such a body to be formed.

‘It’s taken 60 years, so how long is a piece of string…,’ he said. ‘If you look at any company, safety is a very expensive commodity. Nothing may happen.

‘But when people are looking at their budgets, safety is the one that they tend to cut until something goes badly wrong. In our case, the death of 116 children and 28 adults.’

Following the tragedy, Mr Edwards remained fiercely dedicated to bettering his wider community of Merthyr Tydfil, including Aberfan. He served as centenary mayor and council leader as well as the High Sheriff of Mid-Glamorgan.

In April 2026, he was awarded an OBE by King Charles III for his services to fellow survivors of disasters, to charity, as well as the coal mining village, in a ceremony held at Windsor Castle.

He has been involved with initiatives designed to help provide better support to victims of tragedies like Aberfan, Grenfell, the 2017 Manchester bombing, through the Hillsborough Charter as well as the National Emergency Trust.

‘I would encourage anybody who’s been involved in any major trauma to speak about it. Because otherwise you keep that anxiety and stress within yourself,’ he said.

‘And you are really making yourself a lot worse. Recovery is a long process, but what we have to ensure is that resources are available for those who need the help.’

‘Services have improved from the time of 1966,’ he said. ‘There’s still a long way to go, but at least they have improved for people.’

There have been a series of events ahead of tomorrow’s 60th anniversary, including the release of archived documents of the tragedy by South Wales Fire and Rescue Service.

Among them are chilling black-and-white photographs of the aftermath, showing droves of locals desperately looking for survivors among mountains of slurry and debris. Clouds of steam billow from the coal waste that decimated Moy Road.

Notes from control room calls, as well as a handwritten letter to the Home Office, were also released as part of the archive.

The local fire service also visited children at Ynysowen Primary School with one of the very first emergency vehicles to respond to the tragedy ahead of tomorrow’s anniversary.

The visit was part of the Aberfan 60 programme, and included White Watch firefighters who brought along a modern fire truck, as well as the restored emergency vehicle owned by Henry Cotton to Merthyr Fire Station.

Firefighter Sam Gill said the service ‘will always remember those who were lost, and we are always here to protect and support our communities today’.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham visited the cemetery in Aberfan today, where he met Jeff alongside Stephen Kinnock, the Secretary of State for Wales.

There he spoke to David Davies, chairman of the Aberfan Memorial Charity, and Mair Morgan, the last surviving teacher from the school.

‘It’s great honestly to be with you,’ he told survivors and families of those who died. ‘I wanted to be here. It’s really important.

‘I remember my mum and dad talked to me a lot about it. I was born just after. It impacted everyone in a very profound way.’

King Charles, Queen Camilla, as well as the Prince and Princess of Wales, are set to visit Aberfan tomorrow as the village marks the 60th anniversary of the tragedy.