WATCH: The Scars of Piper Alpha

When the names of the 167 men who perished in the Piper Alpha disaster are read aloud at the 30th anniversary memorial service later, Geoff Bollands will recognise all too many of them.

The former offshore worker is travelling to Aberdeen to pay his respects to the colleagues and friends who did not make it off the platform on July 6th 1988.

The 70-year-old is one of 61 men who survived the world’s worst offshore tragedy – and three decades on, he still can’t understand how the mistakes that led to flames engulfing the platform were made.

Mr Bollands said: “ I’ve always just felt grateful that I got off.

“I’ve always talked about it – my doctor encouraged me to. It seems like the more I talk about it, the easier it gets.

“But I’ve got to say that as I wrote the book I had some quite emotional times. I shed the odd tear.”

WATCH: How a 7-year-old boy lost his dad, and followed in his footsteps...

That book, Baptism of Fire: Life, Death and Piper Alpha is published this month, recounting his experience of surviving the disaster.

The dad of three was working as a production operator in the control room on the night of the disaster.

What started as a routine issue – a pump shutdown – quickly escalated and a blast threw him 15ft across the room.

A cloud of gas condensate, leaking from a pump missing a safety valve, had ignited.

He managed to escape Piper Alpha by climbing down a rope tied to a handrail and was picked up by a small rescue boat, taking one of two places left on it.

He could only watch in horror as one explosion after another tore the platform apart and the accommodation block fell into the sea.

“My injuries (from the initial blast) saved my life really,” said Mr Bollands.

“Because I knew I couldn’t do much and I got off.”

It was discovered that a pump men had been working on was brought back into use without anyone realising it no longer had a vital safety valve.

Mr Bollands, who left the industry after the tragedy, said: “I can’t understand why the job wasn’t handed over from one shift to another.

“Thirty years later, I still don’t know the answer to that. Because they were conscientious, reliable colleagues of mine.

“Three people should have handed it over, three people should have received it. And out of six of them, five were killed.”

Mr Bollands spent the aftermath of the tragedy attending enquiries and recovering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

The grandfather said of the psychological scars of the disaster: “I didn’t even know I had PTSD – people told me afterwards I had it.

“I didn’t get any professional help. My wife was a nurse and kept trying to get me to go to a psychiatrist.

“I wouldn’t I just kept saying there was nothing wrong with me, and it was everybody else.

“I got better when I decided not to go back to work offshore. I got on with my life, as my wife put it.”

WATCH: Piper Alpha families denied closure because 30 bodies never recovered after 167 died...

For some people affected, avoiding the industry was never an option.

Stu Cowie from Buckie fund-raises for the Pound for Piper Memorial Trust.

He was just 7-years-old when his dad William died in the disaster.

The 36-year-old told us: "An image of my dad comes into my head whenever I hear the words "Piper Alpha". Then it goes onto scenes of the oil rig being engulfed in smoke and flames. Just what I saw on the news as a young child really. They're very strong words for me to relate to: I just get flashes of images in my head and memories and emotions come flooding back.

"I remember climbing up onto my mum's knee and she was just hugging me, and I still didn't fully understand, but I knew something was going on, I'd never seen my mum upset like that before. Something on the telly wasn't quite right with the oil rig - it was being shot from a helicopter. Footage showing the oil rig, the aftermath of the tragedy, smoke still billowing out of the steel structure - all bent and warped.

"Thinking about it now, my mum must have been watching, waiting for news, waiting for that phone call, waiting for an update."

But hope faded, as police arrived at the door to tell the family - William was gone.

In the days and weeks that followed the community rallied round - filling the house as the Cowie's came to terms with what happened.

The pain is still keenly felt, but for Stuart it was important he followed in William's footsteps, working offshore - like many other members of his family.

He said one of his very first jobs diving offshore helped him gain closure:

"I was at the Claymore platform, which at the time would have been two or thee-hundred metres away from the Piper Alpha.

"I remember being on the deck getting ready to go into saturation and I was outside, getting my last breath of fresh air before confining myself to a chamber for 28 days and I could see the yellow beacon that marks the Piper Alpha wreckage flashing at the break of dawn. I could just see the light ahead of the bow of the vessel, thinking 'I'm going to be going down there pretty soon, and I'm going to be very close to where this actually happened.'

"It might sound strange to people, but for me it was really nice for me to just to be able to imagine I'm walking about on the seabed just a stone's throw away from where the Piper Alpha wreckage was. I don't know, in some kind of unreal way that made me feel close to my dad. I don't know how, but I got comfort out of that."

The names of all 167 men lost – including William Cowie – will be read out during the ceremony at Hazlehead Park later. It’ll be attended by their relatives, friends and representatives from the oil and gas sector. It’s also due to be streamed online so those on rigs right now, and those further afield can join the commemoration.

The vast human tragedy of that day sent shockwaves around the world and forced the industry to take a painstaking look at its practices.

An inquiry led by Lord Cullen opened in Aberdeen in January 1989, ended in February the following year, and published its report of several hundred pages nine months after that.

There were only 62 survivors that night in what remains the world’s worst offshore disaster.