Report published in the Llanelly Star, 24th August, 1911.
Saturday was a black day in Llanelly. The blackest that has ever dawned, for search the history of the town down to its first beginnings, its earliest records and you will look in vain for anything approaching the grim experiences that were compressed inside its twenty-four hours.
The morning commenced and passed away in comparative calm, with no premonitory clouds to tell us of the fearful scene brewing. But in a few moments the scene was changed and the afternoon ended in dark tragedy. The night will ever be memorable the turbulent and violent scenes which were enacted in our streets, culminating in the terrible catastrophe which maimed and injured many and sent six souls into eternity.
It is almost impossible to give a detailed and accurate description of the scenes which made Saturday night in this town hideous. Things were happening so rapidly and the crowds were moving from one place to another so quickly. At one moment a shouting, violent band of men would be in Market Street, in a few minutes they would be half way down Station Road, although all the time there was steadily growing a tremendous crowd near the station – not all Llanellyites by any means, for there were scores, if not hundreds, drawn from the surrounding districts of Pontardulais, Pontyberem, Tumble and Trimsaran, as it was fully anticipated there would be disturbances, and where there is a fight, there the vultures gather.
There never was such wholesale pillage, as no less than 84 trucks were broken into and the contents taken away or destroyed, whilst 14 trucks were looted and burnt. In fact, the scene around the Station beggars description. At various spots could be seen quite young men busily gathering together all the inflammable material about and putting it at the side of the Goods Shed in determined efforts to set the place on fire. Rifling waggon after waggon were swarms of people. Saddest sight of all perhaps were scores of boys reeling about more or less intoxicated. I wonder whether all this wanton destruction of property, wholesale looting, and worse than all, and compared with which the stealing of trucks of provisions is of no account at all, the sacrifice of six lives – I wonder if any of this would have happened if the soldiers had not been ordered to Llanelly. I firmly believe that we should have been spared all the horrors that crowded upon us if the soldiers had been kept away. After the arrival of the soldiers, I noticed at once a marked change in the attitude of the huge crowd, and it was plain for all to see that the presence of the soldiers had inflamed and made them angry. It was deeply and fiercely resented, and looking back there is no doubt at all but that a mistake , worse than a mistake, a blunder, had been made.
The mischief is done past recall. It cannot be repaired but there remains one step to be taken, and that is the holding of a public enquiry, an open and searching investigation into all the terrible incidents of the past few days. The strike is over, let the agreement bring with it peace and a softening of the angry passions that have been aroused, so that, as quickly as may be, the past may be blotted out and Llanelly become once again a law-abiding and peaceful town.
