for the Ynysowen Male Voice Choir.
DAI
I was on the tip removal committee.
Had to be really. Like everyone else
I wanted them gone.
Not surprising, when you think what they’d done.
But after the tribunal they were inspected
and the N.C.B. declared them safe.
No reason to go, that’s what they said.
Well, we wouldn’t take no.
Because that wasn’t the point, was it?
Safe or not (and we’d heard that before)
we didn’t want to see them each day
when we opened our doors.
Piles of the stuff on the mountain side,
dug out, for many of us,
by our very own hands.
It took my boy away –
that was reason enough for me.
So we formed the committee.
Towards the end things got a bit militant,
sacks of slurry on the Welsh Secretary’s steps,
that kind of thing, but eventually,
they went.
Which is when we were left asking,
what next?
Removing those tips, see? It brought us together,
and in a way, no denying, it helped
and we didn’t want that helping to end.
So, we had a meeting and someone said, why not a choir?
Well, I’d always enjoyed singing,
so I was up for it and so were the others,
twelve in total. We chose our name that night too –
Ynysowen, from the phone exchange area,
and set out what we’d do.
Sing only for charity and only for free.
We wanted to say thank you, see?
To all those people and countries
who’d sent donations, who’d let us know
that they were there.
And we’ve stuck to that plan.
The choir’s changed of course, lots of new men,
but that spirit hasn’t, still the same.
We’ve sung the Albert Hall, Hyde Park
on V. E. Day and toured, well,
more than I can say.
Ireland, Scotland, Germany, France,
but England mostly,
the north and the east,
that’s where we like to return to the most.
It can be a struggle, of course,
to keep numbers up, and to keep the right mix.
Always been strong in the bass we have,
but tenors, altos, thinner on the ground.
But we’re still here, and still singing,
that’s the main thing.
And each time we do, well,
I think of it as a tribute of sorts.
To my boy, and his playing with both hands
and, of course, to everyone else who died.
But not just to them.
Also, in a way, to us, the village,
to those who’ve survived.
ANNE is having a coffee in the community centre café.
ANNE
It was years later, when we were adults,
that we all finally talked about it.
Not just those who’d been pupils in the school,
but the teachers too. Looking back
they were so young as well, just N.Q.T.s,
twenty-two, twenty-three.
We got in touch, said right, let’s do this.
Asked each other questions, shared our stories
and got really drunk as we did,
as if it was the only way
we could let everything out.
Since then, I’d say it’s been better.
All of us still carry the scars, of course,
and I couldn’t help notice,
that none of us, when we met, had held down
relationships – either never married
or had, then divorced.
We’d mostly been successful, though.
A barrister, a writer, an accountant, a mayor –
as if having survived that collapsing pile
we’d made a pact with ourselves
to make the living we’d been given worthwhile.
DAN arrives at the Ynysowen Male Voice Choir rehearsals.
Other members are also filtering through the door, rolling the
piano into position.
DAN
I studied hard, in the end. Went to university
then worked for years in the City.
I felt in a way like I had a duty,
to succeed not just for me, but for my friends as well,
the children in that class
who never got the chance
to be what they hoped, or to even try.
So yeah, I think that’s why.
The choir mistress calls the choir together.
They begin vocal warm-ups.
MYFANWY is in the Young Wives Club meeting room.
BARBARA, now fifty-six, is also there,
as are IRENE, CATRIN and BETTY.
The session has not yet begun – there is a mutter of general
conversation.
MYFANWY DAVIES
The club’s changed, obviously, over the years.
Just last week, we put it to the vote,
and decided – time to drop the ‘young’ from our title.
So just the ‘Wives Club’ now we are.
CATRIN
But that’s okay isn’t it?
Because, well, it’s that depth makes this what it is.
Coming together for fifty years or so
and for many of us, all still carrying that same green hollow.
MYFANWY
I don’t know, it’s fine by me
if what we were, what we’ve known,
starts becoming history.
BETTY
Strange though, too, isn’t it?
I mean, just last week I took my granddaughter
up the cemetery, to the memorial.
She’s learning about it, see? In school.
She looked at the graves, the names
then turned to me, and said
‘Is one of these yours, Nan?’
Well, I had to laugh.
IRENE
What did you answer?
BETTY
What could I? Only the truth.
No love, I said. None of these is Nan’s.
But they are, in a way, all of ours,
Aberfan’s.
CATRIN picks up a cut-glass hand bell and rings it
to signal the start of the session.
CATRIN
If everyone’s ready, shall we begin?
At the Ynysowen choir rehearsal WILL has joined his father.
The CHOIR MISTRESS raises her hands and the choir
start to sing.
ANNE is at the playground by the memorial garden,
watching TOM play with MEGAN and other friends.
ANNE
The way I see it, more and more,
is that we’re all carbon, aren’t we?
At least that’s what Tom keeps telling me.
And what happened here,
it was the most terrible weight.
The worst you can imagine.
A weight on lives, families,
the community, the town.
But what happens to carbon under pressure,
if you keep pressing down?
Well, at first, you get coal,
a darkness that burns.
But keep pressing long and hard enough
and some of that coal turns diamond,
and some of that darkness, light.
Now I’m not saying we’re all diamonds
here, of course I’m not.
But I do think that when so many
have felt the same pressure
at exactly the same time,
then sometimes, in places,
we’re pushed through til we shine –
an unexpected brightness,
made both of that darkness
and that sharing of weight,
its source buried under the years
but there, deeply rooted
in our memories, a day, a date.
ANNE’S son, GWYN, approaches up the hill.
He wears a decorator’s overalls.
ANNE
Hello, love.
GWYN kisses TOM on the top of the head
then goes on to give ANNE a hug.
His arrival triggers a game among the children.
BOY
I’m going to be a painter,
like Tom’s dad!
