How one family dealt with their grief after Gresford

Back in 2004, Doris White shared her family's account as part of a BBC Wales programme, The Terrible Price.

As we recount some of her words, she said: "Every family affected will have had its own story and my account is just one of many."

Here is her story...

In 1934, my father, Harold Williams and his brother, Norris, were both employed as electricians at Gresford Colliery.

Norris was newly-married and had moved to live in Llay with his wife, Mary. My father, then aged 22, was single and living with his parents just a few hundred yards away from the colliery.

Harold and Norris worked alternate shifts on a coal-cutting machine in the Dennis section of the mine.

September 21, 1934 was Norris' 24th birthday; it was also his turn that night to work the shift at Gresford.

On his way to work that evening he called at the family home to see his family. Norris suffered at that time from recurring earache and he mentioned to my father it was bothering him that night. Dad offered to change shifts and go down instead of him, but Norris declined his offer and went to work.

My grandfather was an early riser and was up the next morning soon after daybreak. The silence of the morning was broken by the sound of hurried footsteps.

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Puzzled by the press of people passing by, he leant over the gate and asked the reason why so many were on such a mission. The answer he received was to change his life for ever.

It must have been a mixture of numb shock and panic that propelled my grandfather back indoors to convey this news to his son and wife.

I was born in 1952 and, as I grew up, I became aware of the terrible effect the Gresford Disaster had inflicted on my father and his parents.

They spoke little about it but whenever the subject was raised, a dark and sombre mood would descend upon them. Clearly, the memories were painful and to speak of them was like opening up old wounds.

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The memory of how my grandfather had stood at the pit-head for two days, some of it in the pouring rain, waiting and clinging onto every last vestige of hope.

And when all hope was gone, my father's memory of hearing him sobbing relentlessly in the woodshed.

It was his 50th birthday on the Sunday, when he walked away from the pit-head and was forced to face the truth. He never celebrated his birthday again.

Kate and Mary sought consolation in needlework. Mary bought her mother-in-law The Book of Good Needlework with the following poem in the front:

I've embroidered a frock,

And I've sewn the long seams,

While I stitched up a heartache

And mended my dreams.

I've patched a torn garment,

And darned a big rent

While I've worked in new hopes

And a sweeter content.

Why stitching brings gladness,

Or ease for Life's pain,

And healing from sadness,

I cannot explain.

But for little hopes baffled,

And foolish tears shed,

I have sought and found comfort

With needle and thread.

Peter the dog 'sewn with tears' by Kate Williams.

At this time of such sadness, my grandmother made a little stuffed dog, she named Peter. She told me several times that Peter had been "sewn with tears", as she mourned the loss of her firstborn son and also her father, who had died in July of the same year.

As with any death, my grandparents eventually found a way of living with their loss and, apart from avoiding any contact with a neighbouring garage, whose proprietor had been involved with the management at Gresford Colliery, they appeared outwardly to bear no grudges.

I remember my grandparents with much love and respect. My two sisters, my brother and myself were always aware of the cross that they, and so many other local families, had to bear. The shadow cast by the Gresford Disaster was never very far away, but we had many happy times with them.

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They did not burden us with the great sorrow that was in their hearts, but bore it with a quiet dignity.

Silence was my father's way of coping too, apart from a few reflective moments when he would share his thoughts with us. He would speak of the nausea that he and others had often experienced on finishing a shift.

Shortly before his death in 1980, he opened up more than usual about the Disaster; it was only then that he told me about his experience with the rescue workers. Maybe he could somehow feel that his own life was drawing to a close and that he wanted to unburden himself of this memory.

He may also have felt that he was going to be reunited with the brother who had once been so close to him and with his parents who had suffered alongside him.