By John Christopher, Daily Express Saturday 14th April 1973

THE ORPHANS of the Swiss air disaster were whisked away from the heart-breaking atmosphere of two motherless villages yesterday. Forty children from Axbridge and Cheddar in Somerset were taken to the seaside cinema at Weston-super-Mare to see Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The day-trip tragedy, in which 104 people died, has left 47 school-age children and five babies without mothers. Village schools in the district -shut for the Easter holidays -have been reopened in a bid to shield the youngsters from the anguish, But one woman teacher said: “We watch them at school trying to be brave and fighting back the tears.” 

Now a big helping hand operation is to be mounted. Soon social workers with the experience of the aftermath of Aberfan will move in to ease the suffering. Offers of help and free holidays for children have come in from all over the country. And the disaster fund for the Somerset villages tops £5,000. 

In Basle, Swiss and British experts are studying a rough read-out from the black box flight recorder and expect to say why the crash happened at the weekend. The last message from the pilot to the control tower as he struggled in a snow to land the plane storm was: I am overshooting.