A message to the media

What follows is highly personal, very ranty and a bit unfocussed.

We are fast approaching the 40th anniversary of the Aberfan Disaster. I was born and raised in Aberfan and my mother lost a brother and sister in the Disaster. For the uninitiated, 144 people, 116 of which were children under the age of ten, were buried alive by the incompetence of the NCB in 1966. Many of us are still very, very angry about the Disaster, and its aftermath.

Predictably enough, the vultures are descending. Grief tourists are looking to make political capital out of it, and the likes of the Mail have started phoning my grandparents trying to get a story out of it.

I am tempted to head home for a week so I can roam the streets with a baseball bat looking for journalists who want to make stories - and therefore money - out of my people's grief. Why now? Why the 40th? Where were you f*ckers last year, eh?

If you are *so* f*cking concerned about us in Aberfan, make a donation to the Memorial Fund, and leave us to mourn in peace.

EDIT: Pay up, you bastards.