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C1 · Première and Terminale générales

Session 5. Aberfan, 21 October 1966: the face she did not show

The Crown, Season 3, Episode 3, "Aberfan", and the real disaster.

Key question: Could the Queen have reacted differently, and what does duty allow a sovereign to feel?
55 minutes: Recap 5 min · Point du professeur 10 min · Document 8 min · Vocabulary 7 min · Grammar 12 min · Figures and idioms 6 min · Task 7 min
Recap · marked /3

What we already know

Quick quiz (one point each)

  1. Report: "I will not accept it."
  2. Who painted Churchill in 1954?
  3. Zero conditional: If you (see) ______ decay, it (be) ______ because there is decay.
Answers
  1. He said he would not accept it.
  2. Graham Sutherland.
  3. see, is

1Le point du professeur10 min

Pour le professeur

Juger une réaction passée demande des formes que les élèves maîtrisent mal : plus-que-parfait simple et progressif (ce qui s'était passé avant), modaux au passé (reproche, déduction : should have gone, might have felt, can't have known), conditionnel 3 et conditionnel mixte, et I wish / If only + plus-que-parfait pour le regret. On part de la question : Should she have gone earlier?

Starting point

The tip had been growing for years. She should have gone earlier. If she had gone at once, people would have felt comforted.

Past perfect simple and continuous

Modals in the past

Third and mixed conditionals

Regret

I wish / If only + past perfect: If only the tip had been removed. It's (high) time + past: It's high time the truth was told.

Help: should have + past participle = it was a mistake not to do it.

2The document8 min

Official video: What Happened At Aberfan? This Is The Full Story | The Crown (Still Watching Netflix, Netflix's official channel, YouTube)
An official Netflix video (2019, about 12 minutes) telling the real story behind Season 3, Episode 3. No official clip of the episode itself is published.

The facts. On Friday 21 October 1966, shortly after 9 a.m., a colliery spoil tip above the Welsh mining village of Aberfan slid down the mountainside after days of heavy rain and buried Pantglas Junior School and nearby houses. 144 people died, 116 of them children. The official tribunal of inquiry blamed the National Coal Board.

Prince Philip and Lord Snowdon went to the village quickly; the Queen went on 29 October, eight days after the disaster. Her delay was criticised. Years later her former private secretary, Lord Charteris, admitted that the advice had been his: "We told her to stay away until the preliminary shock had worn off", and he called it the biggest regret of her reign (BBC News). She kept a promise to return, opened the new school in 2012, and in 2016 recalled the posy a girl had given her in 1966, inscribed "from the remaining children of Aberfan".

Fiction and history. The episode imagines a Queen who cannot cry in public and asks herself whether something is wrong with her. This inner struggle is the screenwriters' interpretation: nobody knows what she felt. The disaster, the dates and the delay are historical.

Understanding the document

  1. What caused the disaster?
  2. Why were most victims children?
  3. Who was found responsible?
  4. Why was the Queen criticised?
  5. Which part of the episode is fact and which is interpretation?
Answers
  1. A spoil tip of mining waste, saturated by days of rain, slid onto the village and the school.
  2. The tip buried Pantglas Junior School during morning lessons.
  3. The National Coal Board, according to the tribunal of inquiry.
  4. She waited eight days before visiting, while others went at once.
  5. Facts: the disaster, dates, the delay. Interpretation: her private feelings and her inability to cry.

3Building your vocabulary

WordMeaning
a colliery, a coal minea place where coal is dug
a spoil tip, a slag heapa hill of mining waste
to bury, buriedto cover completely
a tribunal of inquiryan official investigation
grief, to grieve, to mourndeep sadness after a death
bereavedhaving lost a relative
to console, condolencesto comfort; expressions of sympathy
restraint, composurecontrolled emotions
aloof, detacheddistant, apparently unfeeling
to be overwhelmedto be overcome by emotion

Exercise 1. Definitions

Which word?

  1. Having lost a member of one's family.
  2. An official investigation.
  3. Distant, apparently unfeeling.
  4. A hill of mining waste.
  5. Expressions of sympathy.
  6. Controlled emotions.
Answers
  1. bereaved
  2. a tribunal of inquiry
  3. aloof (detached)
  4. a spoil tip (slag heap)
  5. condolences
  6. restraint (composure)

Exercise 2. Register

Formal or informal equivalent?

  1. to pass away (formal) = ______ (neutral)
  2. to offer one's condolences = ______ (informal)
  3. bereavement = ______ (neutral)
  4. to be distraught = ______ (informal)
Answers
  1. to die
  2. to say you're sorry
  3. the loss of a relative
  4. to be in pieces

4Grammar in practice

From recognition to open production.

RecognitionExercise 3. Meaning of the modal

Reproach, certainty, possibility or impossibility?

  1. She should have gone at once.
  2. The parents must have felt abandoned.
  3. She might have wanted to avoid distracting the rescuers.
  4. She can't have known the scale of the disaster immediately.
  5. They ought to have removed the tip.
Answers
  1. reproach
  2. certainty (deduction)
  3. possibility
  4. impossibility (logical deduction)
  5. reproach

Controlled practiceExercise 4. Past perfect simple or continuous?

Put the verbs in the right form.

  1. It (rain) ______ for days when the tip slid.
  2. Residents (warn) ______ the Coal Board before 1966.
  3. By the time she arrived, the rescuers (work) ______ for a week.
  4. The children (just / start) ______ lessons.
  5. Nobody (imagine) ______ such a tragedy.
Answers
  1. had been raining
  2. had warned
  3. had been working
  4. had just started
  5. had imagined

TransformationExercise 5. Third and mixed conditionals

Rewrite.

  1. She didn't go at once. She was criticised.
  2. The tip wasn't removed. The children died.
  3. The Board didn't listen. Aberfan still mourns today.
  4. She is a reserved person. She didn't show her grief.
Answers
  1. If she had gone at once, she wouldn't have been criticised.
  2. If the tip had been removed, the children wouldn't have died.
  3. If the Board had listened, Aberfan wouldn't still be mourning today. (mixed)
  4. If she weren't so reserved, she would have shown her grief. (mixed)

TransformationExercise 6. Regret

Use I wish / If only.

  1. I regret that she didn't come earlier.
  2. The village regrets that nobody listened.
  3. I'm sorry I didn't watch the whole episode.
  4. We regret the tip was there.
Answers
  1. I wish she had come earlier.
  2. If only somebody had listened.
  3. I wish I had watched the whole episode.
  4. If only the tip hadn't been there.

AccuracyAccuracy check. Find the mistake

Each sentence contains one mistake. Find it and correct it.

  1. She should went to Aberfan at once.
  2. If she had gone earlier, she would not be criticised at the time.
  3. I wish she came earlier in 1966.
  4. It rained for days when the tip slid.
  5. She can't have know how serious it was.
  6. If only she has shown her feelings.
Answers
  1. She should have gone to Aberfan at once.
  2. If she had gone earlier, she would not have been criticised at the time.
  3. I wish she had come earlier.
  4. It had been raining for days when the tip slid.
  5. She can't have known how serious it was.
  6. If only she had shown her feelings.

Open productionExercise 7. A letter from Aberfan

Write a 180-word letter from a parent in Aberfan to the Queen, November 1966, or the Queen's private diary that night. Use two past perfects, three past modals, one third conditional, one mixed conditional and one If only.

Help: "If you had come sooner, we would have..."; "If only...".

5Figures of speech

Exercise 8. Transform

Rewrite each sentence with the figure given.

  1. She was very upset. (litotes)
  2. The children died. (euphemism)
  3. Many people died. (pathos)
Answers
  1. She was not unmoved. / She was far from indifferent.
  2. The children were lost. / The children passed away.
  3. A row of small coats still hung on the pegs of the classroom.

6Idioms

a stiff upper lip
the habit of hiding one's emotions in difficult situations.
First recorded in American English in the early 19th century, later associated with British reserve.
She kept a stiff upper lip throughout.
to put on a brave face
to look calm or happy when one is not.
Idiomatic use of face as appearance.
The mothers put on a brave face for their other children.
to be at a loss for words
to be unable to speak because of strong emotion.
Neutral, slightly formal.
Even the Prime Minister was at a loss for words.
to bite one's tongue
to stop oneself from saying something.
Literal image of keeping the tongue between the teeth.
She bit her tongue and said nothing.

Exercise 9. Which idiom?

Complete.

  1. He wanted to protest but he ______.
  2. Faced with such grief, I was ______.
  3. British reserve is often summed up as ______.
  4. Despite her pain, she ______.
Answers
  1. bit his tongue
  2. at a loss for words
  3. a stiff upper lip
  4. put on a brave face

7Expression task7 min

Hot seat. One student plays the Queen in 1967, the others are journalists. They ask why she waited; she answers with past modals and conditionals. Then the class votes: was the criticism fair?

Exit ticket · formative check
  1. Reproach: She (go) ______ earlier.
  2. Third conditional: If it (not rain) ______, the tip (not slide) ______.
  3. How many children died at Aberfan?
Answers
  1. She should have gone earlier.
  2. If it hadn't rained, the tip wouldn't have slid.
  3. 116 (out of 144 victims).

C1+Going further (towards C2)

Emotion and power (C1+). 250 words: "A monarch's tears belong to the nation." Discuss with reference to Aberfan and to a later event of your choice. Use inversion in conditionals (Had she gone earlier, ...; Were she to cry in public, ...).

HWHomework

Revise past modals and conditionals. Write ten sentences of regret or reproach about a historical event, each with a different structure.