Get the biggest stories sent straight to your inbox Sign up for regular updates and breaking news from WalesOnline Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Services have been held to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Gresford mining disaster that cost 266 pitmen their lives in 1934.

Families of those who died gathered at the mine itself at 11am and came together again for a service at Gresford Church, in Wrexham, at 2pm.

Among them were siblings Evelyn Wilson, 87, Cyril Crump, 85, William Crump, 80, and Ruby McBurney, 82, who lost their father William Crump in the disaster.

Mrs Wilson remembers the grief-stricken atmosphere around the family home in the wake of the tragedy.

The retired nurse, who now lives in Eastbourne, said: “You were aware of the terrible sadness around you because having four children wasn’t very easy for our mother I shouldn’t think.”

Their mother Mary remarried mine shotfirer Robert Baker. The widows were encouraged to remarry by a disaster fund set up in the wake of the tragedy to reduce the call on its resources.

But Mary died of stomach cancer just eight years after the mining tragedy.

In line with her dying wish that they be kept together the three youngest children were fostered by Mr Baker’s sister Elizabeth Jones and husband Evan. Mrs Wilson had earlier left home when she was 15.

Mrs McBurney, from Wrexham, also a retired nurse, said: “When we were children you weren’t spoken to about it at all at home or in the school so we didn’t get that involved early in our lives really.”

She later helped to raise the money to pay for a plaque that bears the name of the miners killed.

Only 11 bodies were recovered.