My thanks to Doug Hurley for emailing me this and other poems of the late Aneurin
Owen.


BLAENCLYDACH SPAKE DISASTER
NOVEMBER 25th, 1941.

One mine, one street, one chapel
Large shops heap to one side.
A field, a brook, a ripple,
High mountains loom behind.

T'was early morn before the dawn
Of a grey November day,
Premonition did not warn
Of disaster on it's way.

Miners chatting gaily,
Mid laughter of young boys.
A scene repeated daily
To sounds of pithead noise.

All aboard that fateful spake
Then lowered down steep drift
To the bowels of the earth should take,
But disaster came so swift.

The spake did lurch and gather speed
A cry "the rope has gone".
A number leapt through dire need
and some stayed grimly on.

A momentary blackout
The engineer sustained.
In seconds he survived the bout
And speeding spake restrained..

In vague and semi consciousness
My weakened brother lay.
Impressive pulpit he outlined
White forms around him play.

It slowly dawned in his numbed brain,
"Tis heaven that I see".
White forms around him now so plain
That angels they must be.

He was in the tiny chapel
By the entrance to the mine
Where nurses ably grappled
With the calling of their time.

Five young lads were killed that day,
And an older married man.
Twenty-six men injured lay,
To recover when they can.

A keen 'Home Guard' was one young man
A military cortège had he
The churchyard scene of friends so sad,
In several groups I see.

In hospital where miners lie
The last post sounds so clear,
Hard rough hands did raise to face
To wipe away a tear.

Written by Aneurin Owen of Clydach Vale, who worked in the Cambrian Colliery

Note:- The young deaths were raised to six with the death later of Ken Owen, Total
dead was seven counting the married man.
A ' SPAKE' was a rough carriage used to transport men down the drift (slope) to the
mine bottom.
The poem graphically captures the events off that day. Aneurin had a brother
Llewellyn who was injured in the accident and in verses 7 to 9 Aneurin captures his
brother's thoughts and ranting's as he lay being treated in Bush Chapel which was
used as a causualty station, being so very close to the drift..