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Author: Admin | 2025-04-28
Leave the building. “It was me,” Jeff said.“She remembered me from that photograph. We talked about the village and how it was all going. Every time we met we reminisced about what happened.”By this time, after a stint in London, Jeff had returned to Aberfan to set up a charity called the Aberfan and Merthyr Vale Youth and Community Project attempting to help the destitute population, many of whom had lost their incomes as a result of the colliery shutting down in the Eighties, and had turned to alcohol, drugs and petty crime.When the Queen asked him what he was doing, he briefly mentioned the charity and its efforts to “raise the confidence, self-esteem and literacy of people”.The Queen and Philip arrive at Aberfan in 2012 (Image: Getty)The Queen with the bereaved parents of Aberfan, 2012 (Image: Getty)A fortnight later and the Palace was on the phone, asking for more information about the project. “Her Majesty would like to make a personal donation,” officials told Jeff.“There's not many villages really that she's returned to on four occasions, let alone supported the community through giving her personal money,” he said. “She was such a lovely, lovely lady. I’ll always remember her.”Gaynor had similar meetings with the Queen and remembers being captivated by her presence in 1997, when Her Majesty and Philip spoke to the largest-ever gathering of survivors and relatives of the victims, a trip that was orchestrated by Gaynor’s late father, the chairman of the Memorial Fund.“I think Aberfan touched
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