In the early hours of 22 September 1934, the earth shook, the lamps went out, and 266 men and boys were lost in the darkness beneath our feet. Fathers, sons, brothers, friends. Whole families changed in a single night. The pit wheel stopped turning, but the grief never did.

What moves me most is not only the scale of the tragedy, but the courage that followed. The rescue teams who descended into danger knowing full well what they might find. The women who held communities together with nothing but grit and love. The children who grew up carrying stories instead of memories. And the town that refused to let those names fade.

Even now, when you stand at the memorial and read the roll of the fallen, you can feel it — that quiet, stubborn dignity that defines this part of Wales. These were our people. Their blood is in our soil, their stories in our breath.

So today, on the anniversary, I remember them.

I remember the laughter that once echoed through their homes. I remember the bravery shown in the face of impossible odds. I remember the families who endured the unendurable. And I remember that our community is shaped not only by what we celebrate, but by what we survive.

May their memory be a blessing. May their names be spoken. And may we continue to honour them not just with wreaths and silence, but with the kind of compassion and solidarity they would recognise as truly Welsh.

Gresford will never be forgotten.