The following letter front Staff‐Captain Colbourne is interesting:‐ We have been at the pit‐head and visited houses wherever there are dead or missing. Crowds stand about in dull, hopeless silence that is broken occasionally by a woman’s weeping. Some of the cases are so pitiful that it is impassible to describe them adequately. I have just come from a home where the mother, an old frail woman, is awaiting news of her four sons. She is a widow, and the boys are her all. Another woman has her husband, three sons, father, two brothers, and brother‐in‐law all down the mine, while another, in a house close by, awaits for her husband and her eldest boy – a lad of 15 — with her three‐day‐old baby in her arms, and 10 other children round her crying for father, and too young to be of any help. She is in poor circumstances also. (Since then, we regret to say, the mother has died of shock, caused by the news of the disaster, which could not be kept from her – Ed) It’s awful to see them and not be able to say “Hope” for it’s fairly certain now that no more can be got out alive.
Welsh Pit Dosaster. The Salvation Army Pitman's Funeral passing through Senghenydd
The scene at the pit‐head is beyond description. We have been helping wherever we see a chance to assist by comforting, feeding, and above all, praying with the people. They seem to crave for the last, and with all the army of nurses and helpers of every kind, The Army is alone in the praying. The people hang on our words, they say: “No you can’t help me, no one can, but oh, do pray with me!” God is helping us, the girls are acting in a real Soldierly way. They are forgetting themselves, controlling their feelings, and acting as they ought. We work in pairs. Brigadier Greenaway and a host of Officers are here working night and day.