Aberfan tragedy: Victims and rescuers remembered 50 years on

In this part of South Wales everyone remembers where they were when the coal tip collapsed onto the village of Aberfan.

My grandparents and parents lived in Cefn Coed, a village just up the valley, and like so many others couldn't help but be touched by what happened.

Both my grandfathers ended up in Aberfan that morning helping hundreds of other men all desperately trying to save the dozens of children crushed and smothered underneath the rubble inside Pantglas Junior School.

My father's father Hubert Mills was consultant surgeon at East Glamorgan hospital at the time.

He'd been collecting his dry cleaning that morning when the fire chief told him something awful was happening in Aberfan.

He would end up dragging children out as the slurry was still coming down the side of the mountain, deciding who were the most seriously injured and who he would go on to treat.

The Pontypridd Observer reported on how he supervised the care of some of the children following a visit to the hospital by the Queen and Prince Philip a week later.

My mother's father was working at Teddingtons factory in Merthyr Tydfil when the sirens went off.

All the workers rushed to Aberfan and started digging, sometimes just with their hands to try to reach the children and other adults who were trapped.

He was out all night.

They didn't have a phone in the house so my mum was sent down the village to find him.

She remembers him coming back on the bus wearing a miner's helmet and covered in mud.

It was the first time she had ever seen her father cry.

Over the years some have found it easier to talk than others, but with the 50th anniversary there appears to be a renewed desire to share those stories.

As survivors and parents who lost children get older they don't want what happened that day to ever be forgotten.