The man who shot arguably the most famous photograph taken in the aftermath of the Aberfan disaster – which later went on to win the British News Photographer of the Year award in 1966 – has told the BBC that the image still “haunts” him after all these years.
On October 21 1966, Mel Parry, an 18-year-old apprentice photographer with local outlet the Merthyr Express, was passing through the South Wales village of Aberfan on a bus when he was alerted to the disaster that had just unfolded.
A slag heap from a coal mine had come loose, sliding down the hillside and engulfing part of Pantglas Junior School and a number of houses in the village below.
In total, 144 people were killed – 116 of them children, mostly aged 7-10, and 28 adults – by what the media described as a “tsunami of sludge”.
Parry headed to the disaster site and began photographing when he captured PC Victor Jones carrying eight-year-old Susan Maybank to safety. In the image, Maybank can be seen limp in the police constable's arms while her aunt looks at the child in grief amid a background of crowds conducting the rescue effort.
Speaking to the BBC about his award-winning image, Parry said: “It’s a tragedy and unfortunately I ended up gaining from it,” adding, “I wish I’d never taken it.”
In the days following the disaster, as the rescue effort continued, Parry – who had family in Aberfan – discovered that two of his cousins were among the victims. The disaster and loss of family members weighed heavily on Parry and, in the early 1970s, he gave up his career as a press photographer.
However, Parry wasn’t the only professional photographer to document what happened at Aberfan. Renowned Welsh photojournalist and Magnum Photos member, David Hurn, also had boots on the ground, as did American photojournalist IC Rapoport.
The latter headed to the South Wales mining town just days after the tragedy on assignment with Life magazine, later publishing the frames he captured in his book Aberfan: The Days After.
With the 60th anniversary of the Aberfan Disaster fast approaching, Museum Wales (Amgueddfa Cymru) plans to commemorate it on October 01 with a series of exhibitions at several of its museums.
Ceri Thompson, curator of coal mining collections at Museum Wales, told me that David Hurn's images will be on show, as will Mel Parry's award-winning shot.
More details about the commemorative exhibitions and their locations will be available on the Museum Wales website.
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