Britain and the world were shocked in October 1966 by live television pictures coming from a small mining village in Wales. They showed a human tragedy unfolding after thousands of tons of coal waste fell from a mountainside onto its primary school and surrounding houses. The majority of the 144 people killed were children under 12.

After more than 50 years the survivors of that disaster - among the worst in Britain's peacetime history - still live with painful memories and all-too-real after effects. In this first ever oral history of the tragedy, people who were there tell their...