Funding will help to tell disaster story

Mar 22 2008 by Jean Parry, South Wales Echo

A HERITAGE Lottery official says a £50,000 grant to refurbish a room dedicated to the Senghenydd mining disasters will allow people to find out more about the tragedies.

In 1901 and 1913, the disasters at the Universal Colliery claimed the lives of more than 500 men and boys, leaving 542 children fatherless and a community devastated in times of desperate economic need.

The tragedies meant the name Senghenydd became known worldwide, but it was not until around 1990 that the names of those who died were properly recorded – thanks to the late historians Basil Phillips and David Parry – and are now in a Book of Remembrance kept at the village’s Heritage Room in the community centre.

The Heritage Lottery Fund cash injection has meant its total refurbishment and new IT equipment to help digitally record an extensive collection of photographs and artefacts surrounding the disasters. Jo Coles, of the HLF committee for Wales, said: “This is precisely the type of local community project we look to find.”

Roy Noble, of BBC Wales, will open the venture on April 5.