MY HAVEN – TERRY WAITE

The Beirut hostage, 77, at Cambridge’s Trinity Hall where he lived on his return from captivity

1 BACK FROM HELL

I was special envoy to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie, when I was captured in Lebanon 30 years ago on 20 January 1987. He was at RAF Lyneham to greet me on my return five years later. I was elected to a fellowship here at Trinity Hall – where Robert was once Dean – and it became my haven. I was told to ease back to normal life gradually, so I lived here during the week and with my family at weekends. I wrote my book here. This photo of Robert and me is from 1992. He died in 2000 and I do miss him.

2 DOG DAYS

My mother used to say she had one claim to fame. ‘I knew the dog used in the gramophone logo for His Master’s Voice,’ she told me when I was boy. ‘He was a farm dog called Nipper and lived near Alderley in Cheshire.’ I never knew if this was true but when she became ill in later life I gave her this china version of the HMV dog which I bought in an antiques shop near our home in Blackheath. She kept it in her room until she died. It reminded her of her childhood and now it reminds me of her.

3 STICK MAN

My grandmother was a music teacher and used to accompany silent movies on the piano in the local cinema in Staffordshire. She wanted me to learn but we hadn’t the money for a piano as my father didn’t earn much as a policeman. I was a chorister in my local church, and later went to the International Eisteddfod in Wales with the Warrington Male Voice Choir. I still go each year, and one year I met a chap called Bob who hand-carved walking sticks and he made me this one with a mole on top.

4 SAD SOUVENIRS

These are the blindfold and magnifying glass I had in captivity. The blindfold is made of curtain material and I wore it like a bandana when I was alone, but whenever a guard came in I had to pull it over my eyes. I was eventually given a book to read after three years. But they’d taken my glasses so a guard gave me this chipped magnifying glass. When I was freed I wasn’t supposed to bring anything out. But I was determined to take these two items, which I presented to the college here.

5 JOB FOR LIFERS

I’ve had an interest in prisons as far back as my 20s. Bob Gibson, a prison officer at Gartree, believed one of the ways you cut down on violence in prisons is by getting to know the prisoners. He encouraged young prisoners to learn skills and introduced them to a charity that was producing books in braille so they could make books for blind children. The lifers in Gartree said they wanted to do my book in braille so they produced 13 volumes of it and presented this one to me.

6 HAPPY HOLS

My children shun publicity but this is a favourite photo I treasure of them on a family holiday in Norfolk. I worked in the diocese of Bristol as a young man, and the assistant bishop offered us his cottage near Blakeney. The picture shows Clare, Ruth, Gillian and Mark on their bikes and reminds me of our holidays there. There was a sandy beach but the water was cold. My wife Frances would swim but I wouldn’t. We had wonderful times building sandcastles and having picnics.

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