Thursday, May 21, 2020

Choose to Face a Tragedy, a Pandemic, or a Rugby Match ... Like a Welshman


Aberfan, Wales
1966

On the morning of October 21, 1966, the children of Aberfan, Wales, arrived at Pantglas Junior School and prepared for their opening song, "All Things Bright and Beautiful."

Within minutes, 116 of them and 5 of their teachers were dead.

Aberfan, Wales. Buried under
140,000 cubic yards of mining waste.
Looming above Aberfam, a coal mining town, stood a "colliery spoil tip," a 111 foot mountain of waste material removed during mining. A spring beneath the pile and three weeks of rain caused a build up of water. Without warning, 140,000 cubic yards of mining waste slurry suddenly slid downhill, bearing tractors, trucks, and houses with it, burying the school, surrounding buildings ... and the children. A total of 144 people died, including the 116 precious little ones of the small Welsh school, obliterating Aberfan's next generation.

When I heard the heartbreaking story of Aberfan for the first time this week, it left me saddened. Fifty-four years after the event, I grieved the loss of Welsh children, family somehow. For in 1966 I was a college freshman, immersed in surviving my first year and oblivious to the pain and sorrow of a village in my grandfather's home country, the country of my ancestors.

News of the disaster took half a century to reach me, thanks finally to the British drama The Crown on Netflix. Probably we've all watched more than our usual amount of television during this pandemic, and The Crown has been my television time-waster of choice as it appealed to my interest in all things British. The Aberfan episode gave substance and dignity to the drama.

In the film and in real life, Prince Philip attended the children's funeral. The following conversation was part of the fictional account in the movie. On his return to Buckingham Palace after the funeral, Queen Elizabeth asked him a question he considered inane. "Did you weep?" she asked.
Funeral for 81 of the 116 children killed
in the Aberfan landslide, 1966.

"It would have caused anyone with even a fraction of a heart to break into a thousand tiny pieces," he said. "There was anger on their faces, rage in their eyes, but they didn't have rallies or shout or curse or throw things."

 "What did they do?" the Queen said.

 "They sang."

Welshmen singing in the mines.
They sang. No surprise. They were Welsh. It's what people of "The Land of Song" do when faced with joy or tribulation. They sing. "Even at a rugby match, the crowd will sing ... not pop songs but hymns." *

"Singing is in my people as sight is in the eye," comments one character from the Oscar-winning Welsh mining movie How Green was My Valley.* Travel anywhere in the world today where there are Welsh people, and you will find a Welsh choir meeting regularly.

Blogger Ross Clarke notes of his Welsh heritage that in unfamiliar new surroundings the Welsh find solace and sociability in song. He writes, "I can't claim that all Welsh people can sing, but what I can say for sure is that all Welsh people are singers." *

Grandpa Jones wasn't just a singer. He could sing. I grew up with his powerful tenor in church and
Grandpa and Nana Jones sing at the piano on
Layton Road.
around the piano in his living room as Nana Jones played.

Born in North Wales, Grandpa John Owen Jones had been a coal miner. Making a bid for a better life for his wife Winnie and children Betty and Joe, my dad, Grandpa Jones immigrated to Canada and eventually to Blakely, Pennsylvania, a coal mining area with a large Welsh population. He ended up back in the coal mines at the Olyphant and Throop, PA, collieries and singing at every opportunity in churches, bars, or wherever two Welshmen were together.

Mining and music were in his blood.

My dad, Joe, inherited Grandpa's lead tenor. They would blend their distinctive voices on Sunday mornings. Dad joined the choir in every church he attended. He even sang a favorite old hymn, "Beyond the Sunset," at his own funeral, thanks to a prerecorded video.

Aberfan, Grandpa Jones, Dad ... the lesson of the Welsh is to sing ... in the face of trouble, in the throes of joy. Not pop culture songs. Not the "We are the World" variety. Not the "Over the Rainbow" type. But spiritual songs of meaning and depth. Songs that seek God for comfort and love. Songs acknowledging His awesomeness as Creator and Sustainer. Songs that reveal hearts of reliance on God in trouble and gratefulness to Him for all things. 

At the Aberfan funeral, the Welsh villagers sang all stanzas (without books, print-outs, or overhead screens) of "Jesus, Lover of My Soul," a standard Welsh hymn for weddings, funerals, and sporting events, a hymn basic to their lives. Here are the first two verses:

Jesus, Lover of my soul
by Charles Wesley
Jesus, Lover of my soul,
let me to thy bosom fly,
while the nearer waters roll,
while the tempest still is high.
Hide me, O my Savior, hide,
till the storm of life is past,
safe into the haven guide.
O receive my soul at last.


Other refuge have I none,
hangs my helpless soul on thee,
leave, ah! Leave me not alone,
still support and comfort me. 
till my trust on thee is stayed,
all my help from thee I bring,
cover my defenseless head
with the shadow of thy wing.

"All Things Bright and Beautiful" was the hymn children sang to open each school day in Wales. The children were preparing to sing it when the mountain slid into their school. Here are a few of the verses:

All Things Bright and Beautiful
All creatures great and small.
All things wise and wonderful.
The Lord God made them all.

Each little flower that opens,
Each little bird that sings,
He made their glowing colors,
He made their tiny wings.

The purple-headed mountain,
The river running by,
The sunset and the morning,
That brightens up the sky.

All things bright and beautiful
All creatures great and small.
All things wise and wonderful.
The Lord God made them all.

In this worldwide pandemic and in all of our fears, troubles, and joys, may we have an attitude and perspective that seeks God in all things and honors Him in song ... like the Welsh of Aberfan.

Singing ...
On Layton.


* Information sources:

Posted by at 6 comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)