Llangollen antique shop owner pens Gresford disaster book

In time to commemorate its 90^th anniversary later this month a man closely associated with the area’s coal mining heritage has published a book about the Gresford Colliery Disaster.

The 1934 catastrophe, which took place on September 22^nd 1934, saw a series of explosions rip through the Dennis Section of the mine to claim the lives of over 250 men in a matter of minutes.

The men blamed the pit management, the management blamed the men and the government fined the pit owner £500, or £2 per man lost. The dead are still underground.

George Roberts McGill, who lives in Ruabon and for years has run a well-known antique shop in Llangollen, was born into a mining community in Southsea, Wrexham, 75 years ago and had family members who worked down the local Plas Power pit.

He says this has given him a special empathy for the industry and the people who have worked in it and led him to write “No Moon No Stars”, a story he has woven around fictional characters with a connection to the disaster.

Although the paperback he has created runs to 140 pages he points out that it isn’t written in the style of a book at all but rather a theatrical script with over dozen characters who appear in it being guided by stage directions and speaking their lines as in the theatre.

George, who is retired but for many years has had the Passers Buy antique shop in Llangollen, said the title of his work is taken from a poem about the disaster by local writer Rhona Roberts, which appeared first in a Wrexham newspaper in the year of the disaster.

“I decided to use it as the title for the book – or play - which took me over 20 years to put together and has just been published,” he explained.

“I decided to write it as a script as I’m not a writer and couldn’t do a book. But I do know a bit about the style of plays, dialogue, scripts and stage directions as for a number of years I’ve appeared in local amateur stage productions. I’m actually rehearsing at the moment for the latest comedy, ‘Allo ‘Allo: The Camembert Caper, which Llangollen Twenty Club will be performing in November.”

George built up “No Moon No Stars” using anecdotes about Wrexham’s coal mining years he fund in books, autobiographies, biographies and old films of the period and the “cast” includes a mining family of grandfather, son and daughter, a police sergeant, a local doctor, a vicar and even a drunken Mancunian visitor to the area.

The action takes place just before, during and in the aftermath of the disaster, with even a few scenes set down a coalmine.

George said: “It is being sold on Amazon and I’m also distributing it to various venues in and around Wrexham, such as the Miners Rescue Museum in the city’s Maesgwn Road, Waterstones bookshop and the local library.

“I’m not taking any money for the ones they sell and have told them to keep the proceeds and put it towards their own upkeep.

“I wanted to do this because I have a strong feeling for the coal mining community, not just in this area but right across Britain.

“I even painted the front cover myself in the dementia-friendly art class in Wrexham that I help out with.

“It’s likely to be my one and only venture into writing but I must admit I have another subject in mind which quite interests me, so you never know.”   

* No Moon No Stars is available on Amazon at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Moon-Stars-George-Roberts-McGill/dp/B0DDHCVP22