I first met Tyrone O’Sullivan whereas making a TV documentary in Wales for East German tv within the aftermath of the miners’ strike and within the early days of the employees’ takeover of Tower Colliery. He was an enormous man and at first sight appeared extra like somebody you would possibly see slogging it out in a wrestling ring than the workplace supervisor he had turn into. However he was very a lot the alternative: sort and softly spoken.
He and his spouse, Elaine, welcomed us with generosity into their miners’ cottage within the Cynon Valley. He launched us to the village, and the miners who lived there, the place they nonetheless had a brass band and a miners’ welfare membership. He additionally took us to see the Aberfan cemetery within the subsequent valley the place, in 1966, 116 kids and 28 adults have been killed as a slag heap collapsed. That’s the price of coal, he instructed us, with an uncommon be aware of anger in his voice. He might be lengthy remembered, not least by his comrades in south Wales.
