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Aberdare Boys’ Grammar School

Sporting Activities

Old School

Under-13 & Under-15 Rugby Trip to Sherborne, October 1966
information about the names of the players on this trip is welcomed

from Mrs Christine Evans

Sherborne Rugby Trip
From left to right, adults: Selwyn Williams (Western Welsh), Mr D. Ll. Jones, Mr Ken Griffiths.
(The coach is facing down Cwmdare Road with the Further Education College in the background.)

This particular weekend was the one on which the Aberfan disaster occurred, at 9.15 am on Friday, October 21, 1966. The travelling group knew nothing about it until they stopped at a motorway services, although it is likely that the teachers were the only ones who knew at this stage. Because of the disaster the welcome the boys had was tremendous. Ken Griffiths and D. Ll. Jones organised the same trip the following year. The boys were hosted by the parents of the school they visited. Aberdare reciprocated the welcome on two occasions. Both exchanges were a great success.

Jeff Chapman has sent in these additional comments about the trip:
On arrival at Sherborne we were billeted out. I stayed with Geoff Churchill who had been my own guest the previous year. After an early evening dinner of roast beef, we got ready to go out with a group of friends from both schools. Coming down to the living-room, we found the TV on, older family-members sitting hushed and the BBC streaming in live pictures from Aberfan. As we watched in stunned silence and began to get the news of the body-count, our other friends walked in. There was a sombre half-hour or so before we went out for a joyless evening. Since we were initially met without any sign of disturbance at the school, I don’t think anyone on the trip had picked up anything about the disaster prior to seeing the evening news.

From left to right, the boys I am certain of are as follows:
partly obscuring Ken Griff’s face is Enrico Bianchi. Then, Jeff Thomas (blonde-hair), behind him is Clive Boaler; to Jeff’s left, in front of Clive, is Gareth Hughes.
Behind him (L to R) Kevin Herbert and Morris Davies. Hiding Morris’s mouth is Peter Lewis. On Morris’s left, David James. In front of him, Stephen Creedon. The boy behind, wearing specs, is probably Gerald Carter. Paul Meyrick is the small boy in the front row. Between the spectacle wearer and Meyrick, slightly to their left, is Richard ‘Dickie’ Hughes.
In front of Hughes is Nicholas Sharich. I am immediately on Sharich’s left holding a small case, and the short, dark-haired smiling lad on my immediate left, wearing a white badge, is Anthony Cove (Aberaman). I can’t make out the faces of several boys behind me, but I’m sure that Graham Smith is smiling over my left shoulder, and that Gerard O’Hagan is the tall, dark-haired figure between our heads.
I am not certain of who the obscured boys are to the left of the next blonde-haired boy, but the blonde-haired boy is Lyndon Rees. The boy whose half-hidden profile emerges on the left of Lyndon Rees’s head as you look at it, is Phillip Thomas. John Roberts is the taller, dark-haired boy to Rees’s left. I can’t recall the small smiling boy immediately below him or the lad partially covering John’s face.
The back row, starting on John’s left consists of Alan Larrimore (wearing spectacles), Alan Jones (specs), Arwyn Powell, Peter Stewart (Cwmaman), Gwyn Lloyd Jones (Dalla’s brother), Robert Jones (fair hair), and Graham St. John.
Front row (R to L): Melvin Collier, —?—, Howell Thomas (with case), John Collins (white cord? visible).

Information for bus spotters: Registration WKG 138; Chassis: AEC Reliance 2MU3RA3185; Body Weymann (Celtic class) C39F; new in 1961.
Livery: Ivory with maroon trim.