ABERFAN, UNITED KINGDOM | I researched and wrote this episode, which begins on October 21, 1966. The day dawned misty and grey in the Welsh mining town, with fog blanketing the village. The 240 students of Pantglas Junior School were looking forward to their half term break. At an assembly later that morning, they would sing the hymn ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ for their teachers before school would be dismissed at midday. Ahead of them was a week off. The children were looking forward to getting outside for hours of playtime with their friends. That morning, 8-year-old student Jeff Edwards walked to school with his best friend Robert Jones. When the boys arrived, they hung up their coats and took their seats in the classroom. It was a perfectly ordinary, drizzly autumn day, with everyone in the village going about their business. But what no one in Aberfan, Wales, or even the rest of Britain could anticipate, was that in less than an hour, the lives of the town’s residents would be changed forever in the most tragic – and some would later say entirely foreseeable – of circumstances.
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