#r1966

[margaretroses]

Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, meets with jazz legends Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington at the Royal Festival Hall in London, 1966.

[margaretroses]

Lord Snowdon visits Aberfan in South Wales following the tragic disaster on 21 October 1966, in which an avalanche of waste material from the nearby coal mine cascaded downhill and into the local village, engulfing Pantglas Junior School and other buildings in the area - killing a total of 116 children and 28 adults. 

Of Welsh background himself, Snowdon spontaneously took a train from London alone, in the second-class carriage with only a small suitcase containing pyjamas and a shaving kit. The first member of the Royal Family to make the visit, he arrived in Cardiff at 2am, the morning after the tragedy, and was then driven up to Aberfan. He left the emergency services to their carry on their rescue attempts and focused on providing comfort to parents, 50 of whom were waiting in Bethania chapel to identify the bodies of their children. 

According to his biographer, Anne de Courcy, Anthony “made it his job to visit the bereaved relatives, sitting holding the hands of a distraught father, sitting with the head of a mother on his shoulder for half an hour in silence. In another house he comforted an older couple who had lost thirteen grandchildren - in another where they were terribly upset, he offered to make a cup of tea, went into the kitchen and returned with a tray with cups for them all. He helped an older man persuade his son, who was clutching something in his tightly clenched fist, to open his hand. It was a prefect's badge, the only thing by which he had been able to identify his child..."

"Darling, it was the most terrible thing I have ever seen." - Lord Snowdon in a letter to his wife, Princess Margaret.

[margaretroses]

Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon at a ball in aid of Barnado’s at the Tower of London, 30 June 1966.