I happened to be working that night and saw the news unfold of the Tsunami which had followed the earthquake in the Indian Ocean. At this point no-one could have ever realised just how big this disaster was going to be. It was nearly a week before it really dawned on us all just how much devastation had been caused. It had actually made the world wobble and affected two continents.

"Nothing could really prepare us for the sights we saw."

The full horror of the number of people killed or injured still didn't seem real, and in disbelief we sat glued to the screen trying to absorb the enormity of what was happening. The irony of it all is that the disaster made countries all over the world pull together to do what they could to help in a way I hadn't seen before.

After the first week, I realised that I needed to do something myself. It wasn't enough to watch the news reports and keep wishing I was there to help so I decided to put my money where my mouth was. I spoke to my brother and we decided that we would go to Indonesia and put our skills of working with children to good use. My sister-in-law decided to join us and we went about raising funds for the victims.

Having collected nearly £14,000 from friends and family, nearly two weeks after the Tsunami we set off for Jakarta in Indonesia. We had decided to go to Banda Aceh - the epicentre of the disaster which had seen the biggest death toll and which had already reached a three figure number. My brother had made contact with an Indonesian voluntary organisation, PKPU who were to meet us in Jakarta and help us achieve our goal.

"Everything was covered in a dark grey sludge."

Within 24 hours of arriving in Jakarta we were on our way to Banda Aceh on a flight chartered by the voluntary organisation. For the next ten days, home was to be a run-down guest house with a mattress to sleep on which we shared with the mosquitoes, ants, lizards and a frog who seemed to have taken a shine to me.

By midday on the second day, my family and I set off with a translator and driver from PKPU who had kindly arranged transport for our visit. We braced ourselves for the visit to the camps and what was left of Banda Aceh.

Nothing could really prepare us for the sights we saw. Everywhere as far as the eye could see, the land which was once lush green with rice fields, coconut and banana trees was now just a a mass of twisted metal, and complete devastation. All the green had gone, everything was covered in a dark grey sludge. For miles it felt as though we had stepped back in time and were in a black and white movie.

Back to school: "These people were not going to be beaten."

Camps had been set up every 200 yards or so with makeshift tents or in buildings which had been fortunate to stay standing. Volunteers and survivors worked side-by-side to continue the search for the scores of bodies they continued to find on a daily basis. We stopped to pay our respects at the mass graves which still had piles of bodies waiting to be buried.

At the camps we met with orphans we'd planned to help. Everywhere we went we found them, traumatised but trying their best to make the best of what they had. We found children as young as nine-years-old who were left as carers for their younger siblings, mothers who had lost all their children, fathers who had lost their entire families. Everywhere we went there was a story: stories like the hospital with 59 survivors out of their 600 staff and the mother who lost 28 members of her family and had not found a single body.

Despite all this, one thing became clear very quickly. These people were not going to be beaten. They greeted us with open arms and always had a smile to meet us with. I had never met such humble people who would still give you their last cup of water and greet you by bowing and kissing your hand...