I was also 15 at the time of the Aberfan disaster and living in Hertfordshire. I made myself a promise at the time that I would, one day, visit the village. I finally made it about ten years ago, with my husband and children, soon after we moved from Oxford to South Wales. We walked around the memorial garden where the school once stood, and visited the cemetery which overlooks the village. We went into a pub in the afternoon and I talked to an elderly man, a retired miner, who remembers helping with the digging. It seemed to me that there was still, after all those years, a great sadness in the air.

I would also like to recommend a book, "Aberfan (Struggling Out Of The Darkness)" ISBN 1 898986 05 3 by Gaynor Madgwick, one of the surviving children. I received a copy from her parents, who lost a son and a daughter in the disaster.