The third series of Netflix's The Crown has dropped, ushering a new and tumultuous era in British history.
Covering the period between 1964 and 1977, the latest series starring Olivia Colman includes the Aberfan disaster of 1966, which killed 146 people.
Aberfan, a small mining village in Wales, was devastated when a landslide of muddy coal waste collapsed and engulfed Pantglas Junior School, killing 116 children.
Series showrunner Peter Morgan has written the catastrophe into the storyline, but how much creative licence has he used in doing so?
Here, we take a look at how The Crown compares Queen Elizabeth's response to the disaster.
How does the show compare?
The Queen sparked criticism when she waited over a week to visit the site of the disaster. Instead of travelling to Wales, she sent an official message of condolence and later dispatched Prince Philip to the scene.
The Duke, however, did not actually attend the funerals of those who died in the disaster - according to the Guardian, writer Peter Morgan added this into his script as he thought it was necessary to include a main character in each key scene.
When the Queen eventually visited the site eight days after the catastrophe to meet with those who had lost family members in the landslide, eyewitnesses reported that she briefly became tearful when a young girl presented her with a bunch of flowers - though the precise moment wasn't captured on film. It’s thought to have been the first time the Queen shed tears in public.
In the episode, Colman's character only visits the site following pressure from Prime Minister Harold Wilson after initially dismissing the idea. She also says afterwards that she had merely dabbed a handkerchief at dry eyes in order to give the public a display of royal emotion.
But Harold Wilson's press secretary Joe Haines has slammed this as "absolute nonsense", stating the Queen was able to show real emotion.
The Aberfan disaster clearly had a huge impact on the Queen. In a book marking her Golden Jubilee, biographer Gyles Brandreth recounted a conversation he had with her private secretary, Martin Charteris. Asked whether she had any regrets over her reign, Charteris reportedly answered: “Aberfan.”
A survivor from the disaster, who was eight-years-old at the time, has hit out at what he thought was a "callous" portrayal of the Queen in the show.
Jeff Edwards, the last child to be rescued live from the school, told the Radio Times: "“[In the episode] she says, ‘We don’t do disaster sites, we do hospitals’. [When] I first saw that, I thought, ‘Well that’s rather callous’. And knowing the person, I don’t think she would have said that, personally.”
He also criticised the decision to show the Queen pretending to wipe her eyes with the handkerchief, saying: "We know she did cry, because she went to Jim Williams’ house – and when she came down from the cemetery she was visibly crying."
