The little girl's belongings that tell the story of the Aberfan disaster

This story contains upsetting details that some may find distressing

In her school exercise book Marylyn Minett had been writing about the big events of the 1960s: a rocket launch, a volcano erupting and a shopping trip to Merthyr Tydfil with her auntie Pam.

"This is not news," her teacher noted in the margin of her book.

Weeks later, 10-year-old Marylyn and her teacher would become victims of a news story that spread around the world - when a colliery spoil tip collapsed, slid down a mountain and engulfed the village's primary school and surrounding houses.

Ahead of the 60th anniversary of the Aberfan disaster that killed 116 children and 28 adults and left a lasting scar in Wales, Marylyn's family have donated her school books to Amgueddfa Cymru, Wales's national museum.

They are among a number of other items being preserved to help tell the story of those who died on 21 October 1966.

"Each of these things shows who they were," Marylyn's sister Gaynor Madgwick said.

Along with Marylyn's books, Gaynor's family is donating items belonging to their younger brother Carl - who was seven years old when he was killed alongside his sister.

"They weren't just names in a list, they were children with personalities, with lives, with things they loved," Gaynor said.

Carl's football and the belt he always wore with his jeans will be entrusted to the care of Amgueddfa Cymru.

The family have also chosen to donate a recently discovered dress which they believe was Marylyn's.

It was found in 2025, wrapped in paper and buried inside the kitchen wall of their former family home.

Their father, Cliff Minett, had been building the bungalow when the disaster happened.

By burying her little dress in the walls of their new family home, his focus had been on "preserving Marylyn, wanting something to last forever", Gaynor said.

She and her siblings believe it was their father's way of coping with the tragedy and keeping Marylyn inside the house.

"It's the same as these [school] books, Carl's belt, the football. They will be preserved forever.

"His wish is granted."

The items will be initially kept at the museum's collection centre in Nantgarw - where they will be cared for and made available for research and potentially prepared for public display.

"People want to see, people want to touch.

"Because when you touch something that belonged to a child, it makes their story real," Gaynor said.

Among the poignant objects recovered from the scene in Aberfan was a Welsh language Bible that belonged to Cliff and Anne Bunford.

The couple lived in Cardiff, but owned a house in Moy Road in Aberfan which was rented out to a young family.

When the disaster happened, the Bunfords drove to the village and witnessed the devastation.

Police allowed Cliff through the cordon, where he found the house had been swept away by slurry.

"When he came back to the car, he was in tears," Anne, 92, said, adding he urged her to go down and see it for herself.

"I saw destruction everywhere.

"The house wasn't there, it was just bits of bricks and a chimney."

The young mother and baby who lived there had been killed.

"[Cliff] said to me 'the husband's gone to work and when he comes back there's nothing'," she said.

In the days that followed, Cliff returned to what remained of the house.

When he climbed the heap of slurry, he saw splintered furniture and ruined papers, but one thing remained intact.

"The Bible was whole, stuck at the top," Anne said.

"Other things were broken up... but the Bible was whole."

The Bible had belonged to Cliff's father, who had written the family names inside its pages and would gather his children every Sunday after lunch to read a chapter aloud.

Anne remembers her husband's reaction when he found it.

"It sounds sentimental, but he said: 'dad had the last word'."

For decades the Bible sat in the family's music room in Cardiff with Anne saying she never drew attention to it because it brought back painful memories for her husband.

Cliff died in 2018 and Anne has given the Bible to the museum as one of the few items to survive the disaster intact.

"It should be somewhere for other people... as a memory of the terrible disaster."

Amgueddfa Cymru's curator, Ceri Thompson, oversees the Aberfan collection that has grown in recent years.

"Up until five or six years ago, there wasn't anything 3D," he said.

"We had the reports and the paperwork, but actual items from the disaster simply weren't there."

For a long time there was nothing tangible that could tell the story of those who had died.

That only changed when the rusted school clock that stopped at 09:13 was discovered in a wardrobe in 2019 and sent to St Fagan's for conservation.

Thompson believes this encouraged other families to think about the future of the items they had kept for decades.

"People start asking themselves what will happen when they go," he said.

"Is something going to end up stuck in a drawer or thrown away?

"Donating means the story is preserved."

The museum has the right conditions to preserve the donated items and there are already a significant number in its collection.

A bundle of letters from a school in California, which were found a few years ago in an attic in Rhydyfelin near Pontypridd, show how the disaster touched people around the world.

The children at Madrone Elementary School in Santa Rosa heard the news and were asked by their teacher to write notes of sympathy to the pupils of Pantglas Junior School.

"I'm very sad that avalanche covered the school," one child wrote, addressing the letter to a teacher they didn't know had already been killed.

Another, who had drawn flowers alongside her message, said: "I wish that I could help you."

In a cover letter from the American teacher, dated three days after the disaster, she wrote: "Please convey to your children's parents our heartfelt feelings of compassion."

Other items already kept by the museum include a doll belonging to a girl who died and the delicate white gloves worn by a young bridesmaid – a week before she was killed in the disaster.

All the items help build a picture of a community that experienced devastation and changed the lives of so many families.

Thompson wants to ensure the victims of Aberfan are remembered as individuals not statistics.

"The answer I've always had from families that they want the objects to give life to the person who was lost.

"We remember for the community."