This small South Wales village where a slag heap slide on the school and killed a number of the small children? This was my first natural diaster on a big scale and it broke my heart. I gave a donation. ( My weekly salary was about what the average person earns an hour these days so the amount seems silly now. But it was a lot of money to me at the time.)
As time went by, reports began to appear of law suits and various squabbles between the surviours about the balance of the money. It made me feel dirty somehow to be part of this nastiness. I have never again donated to a diaster fund and probably never will. The 9/11 disputes did nothing to change my mind.
That's a shame but I understand where you are coming from.
I don't give to any charities in the US for similar reasons. I'll give to British, Caribbean or African charities as they seem to waste less on admin and the lawsuits don't tend to drain the funds as much as in US.
Yes, I remember. My aunt and cousins lived not too far away. One of my cousins took me to see the village about 24 years ago when I was a teenager and I remember thinking how 'dead' the place was. Very quiet and a village that never recovered.
Not long after this visit there was a documentary on the TV which had an interview with a couple of the children that were not at school that day. I don't remember a lot of what they said but a couple of things stuck in my head. They were explaining the guilt their parents felt that at least one of them and their family had to leave the village. One of them was explaining how they were off school sick but their sibling was at school that day and they heard the slide and watched it from their bedroom window.
I'm very cautious about giving money to US charities. They just don't give me any confidence in their abilities. However, I would and do give to UK charities.
There was a TV documentary last year here in the UK about Aberfan, and this too had some survivors being interviewed (it may even be the same one Ben speaks about) anyway it was said during the programme that the disater fund had been invoiced by the NCB (or whatever they were called at the time) for the removal of the slagheaps around the town, as they were removed at the villagers request rather than for whatever reasons the coal board may have had. For many years this was a bone of contention with the survivors and the bereaved families etc. Anyway right at the very end of the programme there was some text came on screen that one of the first actions of the labour govenrnment when it came into power was to quietly pay this money back into the disaster fund, and that they have never made political capital of it.
I was very pleasantly suprised to hear this - not least because it seems some politicians do have morals after all! I have never been a labour party supporter, but I felt moved to write to my MP (Inner city Leeds of course he's Labour!) and tell him of my respect for his party's actions and to feel free to pass my thoughts onto whoever he wished, as honourable actions like this ought to be praised
Only pity is that it hadn't been done years ago by sucessive Labour and Conservative governments.
Steve
I too remember Aberfan.. a whole generation wiped out...