A Terrible Kindness

Tonight nineteen-year-old William Lavery is dressed for success - his first black-tie do. It's the Midlands Chapter of the Institute of Embalmers Ladies' Night Dinner Dance, and William is taking Gloria in her sequinned evening gown. He can barely believe his luck. But as the guests sip their drinks and smoke their post-dinner cigarettes, a telegram delivers news of a tragedy. An event so terrible it will shake the nation.
It is October 1966 and a landslide at a coal mine has buried a school : Aberfan. William decides he must act. It will be his first job, and - although he's yet to know it - a choice that threatens his own happiness. His work that night will force him to think about the little boy he was, and the losses he has worked so hard to bury. But compassion can have surprising consequences, because - as William is about to discover - giving so much to others can sometimes help us heal ourselves.