A SURVIVOR of the Titanic disaster will visit Gwent this week - to see the mill where a distress signal from the stricken ship was heard.

Milvina Dean (pictured), from Southampton, remembers nothing of the disaster as she was a baby when she was a passenger on the Titanic's maiden voyage.

She was only nine weeks old when the ship - thought to be unsinkable - struck a huge iceberg on its way to New York on April 14, 1912, and went down.

Milvina was passed into her mother's arms in a life-boat and survived but her father lost his life, along with more than 1,500 other passengers.

Miss Dean's brother Ber-tram, just two at the time, had wandered off but was taken on board a lifeboat by another passenger and was re-united with his family on the rescue ship Carparthia.

Now 90, Miss Dean has been invited to Gwent by a member of the British Tit-anic Society, Graham Kennard, of Pontypool.

He joined the society with his son Lee four years ago. His grandson Liam, 13 months, is its youngest member.

Mr Kennard said: "We started visiting Miss Dean in Southampton and taking her out for trips - she is a marvellous woman."

The family recently attended her 90th birthday party in Southampton and now they have invited her on a visit to their home.

Miss Dean is due to arrive in Gwent on Thursday and the following day will visit Gelligroes Mill in Pontllanfraith.

The mill is famous for receiving some of the first distress signals from the sinking Titanic. Graham Morgan, candlemaker at the mill, said the signals were picked up by one of the brothers who owned it at the time. Arthur Moore, who later went on to work for Marconi, had made the wireless which picked up the signals.

Mr Kennard said: "No one believed he had heard the signals until the day after, when the news came out."