Queen Elizabeth II regarded her absence in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy as one of the deepest regrets of her reign.
Now King Charles, Queen Camilla and the Prince of Wales will join forces for a rare public appearance marking the 60th anniversary of the Aberfan disaster, in which 116 schoolchildren and 28 adults died.
The Mail understands that the royal party will travel to the small South Wales village next week to honour all 144 victims of Britain’s worst mining disaster and pay tribute to a community that has spent six decades rebuilding its life.
Their visit is scheduled for October 21, exactly 60 years after a huge colliery waste tip gave way and engulfed Pantglas Junior School and nearby homes.
The wave of black slurry, dumped on the hillside above Aberfan, swept through everything in its path. It buried Pantglas classrooms filled with children looking forward to the half-term holiday, due to begin the following day.
The scale of the disaster was so immense that some streets were left without a single surviving child.
For King Charles, the visit will carry a particularly personal poignancy. He has asked to meet a schoolboy who was photographed with his late father, Prince Philip, the day after the tragedy.
Gareth Jones was six years old when the Duke of Edinburgh came to Aberfan.
King Charles, pictured meeting the wives of Aberfan disaster victims during his first visit to Wales as monarch in 2022, will appear publicly with Queen Camilla and Prince William this week to mark the tragedy’s 60th anniversary
The King is set to meet the schoolboy who survived the disaster at six and met the late Prince Philip in 1966
Now 66, Gareth Jones will meet Charles 60 years after 150,000 tonnes of coal slurry struck his school at 9.13am on October 21, 1966
A haunting black-and-white photograph taken that day shows the visibly traumatised boy meeting the Queen’s husband. Gareth had been rescued from a classroom window by a school caretaker, who tragically lost two of his own sons in the disaster.
In an extraordinary stroke of luck, Gareth’s sister Janice, then 11, and his seven-year-old brother Graham also survived.
Now 66, Mr Jones still recalls the horror with striking clarity.
“The King knows about the photograph of his father at my house and asked about the children in the picture — one of the little boys is me,” he told the Mail.
“I remember a man coming to visit and we all came out of the house to see him. I thought he was the King because he was the Queen’s husband.
“He stopped to talk and said: ‘All three of you survived the disaster?’”
The photograph captures his mother, Rene, the three children and Gareth’s grandfather, retired miner and lay preacher Robert Davies, standing in the front garden of their small home.
The children had moved in with their grandparents after their home in the village, near Merthyr Tydfil, was damaged when 150,000 tonnes of coal slurry crashed into the school at 9.13am.
The image has remained on the wall of Gareth’s Aberfan living room ever since. This week, however, he will take it down to show King Charles and Queen Camilla when they visit Cardiff to officially open the Senedd, the Welsh Parliament.
Mr Jones says: ‘The photo has always been special to me but it also has meaning for the King because his father is in it.
‘If you look at it closely you can see there are no other children in the picture, they’d all been lost in that horrible day.’
The father-of-three, who has lived all his life in Aberfan, has been in hospital with a serious lung condition for the last six weeks.
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But he was discharged last week, just in time for the royal visit and is working on his fitness, as he is so determined to stand for the royal meeting, although his children have bought him a wheelchair just in case.
The late Queen Elizabeth was heavily criticised at the time of the disaster for choosing not to visit Aberfan for eight days
He said: ‘I’ll be there whatever happens, I’m looking forward to telling the king my recollections of the day his father came to the village.
‘The Royal Family have never forgotten what happened here, they have visited so many times.’
There was fierce criticism back in October 1966 when the late Queen chose not to visit Aberfan until eight days after the disaster.
While Prince Philip and Prime Minister Harold Wilson visited the site the day after the tragedy, Elizabeth, acting on advice from her private secretary, Lord Charteris, stayed away believing her presence would hamper rescue efforts and overshadow the grief of the family.
Lord Charteris later admitted it was a mistake, and the Queen herself came to view the delay as one of the biggest mistakes of her reign.
When she did visit, journalists – including the late Brian Hoey writing for the Daily Mail – noted that Elizabeth seemed unusually emotional and shaken by the grief of the families she met. There has long been debate as to whether it was one of the rare moments she wept in public.
Marilyn Brown, whose daughter Janette, 10, was killed said at the time: ‘You could see she was quite emotional. You could see that she cared, you know.’
The youngest of her four children, Prince Edward, was just two at the time.
The story of the Queen’s regret over Aberfan was brought to a modern audience more recently when it featured in season three of The Crown.
But Mr Jones bears the late monarch no ill-will, saying: ‘To me, she held back as a mark of respect to the families who lost children. The Queen waited for the dust to settle, I still think it was the right thing to do. She was showing respect to the people of Aberfan.’
He met the Queen when he was 14 at the official opening of the Aberfan Memorial Garden in 1974 and now gives talks to local schools about the disaster and his incredible escape.
Queen Camilla, pictured at a reception for Aberfan victims’ wives in 2022, will join her husband and the Prince of Wales to mark the disaster’s 60th anniversary
Prince William, pictured with his wife the Princess of Wales in Aberfan in 2023, will join the Royal party next week
Speaking of that moment he recalled how he was pushed through an open window into the arms of school caretaker Stephen Andrews, who lost two sons in the disaster.
‘He told me to run home and that’s what I did. It’s a miracle my brother and sister got out too,’ he said.
Poignantly, the retired web designer was giving a talk earlier this year when he discovered one of the children was the great-great grandson of the caretaker who helped him to safety.
And that same child will present a posy to the King and Queen when they are in Cardiff this week.
It is rare for the three senior royals to conduct a public engagement together and is an insight into the legacy the disaster still has today for the royal family.
A palace source said: ‘Their attendance reflects the longstanding connection the royal family has made with the people of Aberfan over many decades.
‘This will be an opportunity for them to pay their respects to those who lost their lives, and hear the inspiring stories of how this community rallied to support one another as they face the most unimaginable tragedy.’