Aberfan joins to recall dead

A CATHOLIC mother whose daughter was one of the 116 children who died in the Aberfan disaster 25 years ago has revealed that she tried, to no avail, to get a shared church built as a memorial. Sheila Lewis, who at 9.16am on Monday will join other bereaved parents at a private ecumenical service to mark the precise anniversary of the disaster, led by the Revd June Vaughan who lost a child at Aberfan, is a parishioner at St Benedict's Church, Merthyr Vale. Her daughter, Sharon, was killed when a mountain of slurry destroyed the junior school in the Welsh mining village in 1966.
"When people were wondering what to do with the thousands of pounds sent to the disaster fund from all over the world, I suggested to the local Council of Churches that a shared memorial church be built on the site of the school," said Mrs Lewis.
"In the Welsh valleys in the 1960s, the churches were nowhere near so close as they are today and the idea of a joint place of worship was not taken up. In the ecumenical atmosphere of today, the atmosphere may well have been different."
Fr Patrick Kerrisk, priest at Aberfan at the time of the disaster, now at Holy Family in Cardiff, had only been in the parish for 11 days when disaster struck. "On the Sunday after the disaster a parishioner, John Collins, now dead, approached me and welcomed me to my new mission...then he asked me to bury his wife and two sons who had been killed while he was at work. It was a humbling experience I shall never forget."