Terry WAITE

Having experienced five years of isolation, Terry Waite shares the lessons he learnt in captivity

Iwas sitting in the front passenger seat of a fairly new Mercedes. My driver, a Syrian intelligence officer, was a man of few words. A few moments before, I had been hauled from the boot of a less roomy vehicle and a blindfold that had covered my eyes on and off for 1,763 days was removed. For the first time in almost five years, since I was taken captive by Hezbollah in Beirut, I felt the warmth of the sun and the gentle caress of a Mediterranean breeze on my face.

I turned my head towards the driver. “Where are we going?” I asked. He smiled but made no reply. During the long years of captivity I had been accustomed to having conversations only with myself and the imaginary characters I created in my head. I looked out of the tinted windows and saw that we were passing through what seemed to be a barren stretch of rocky terrain. Later I was to learn that we were travelling the road that leads from Beirut to Damascus. Centuries before me St Paul had travelled from Jerusalem to Damascus with a mission to arrest the followers of Jesus. En route he had a revelation which completely changed his life. My journey was less dramatic but nevertheless it marked a significant turning point in my own life.

After about two hours of driving we arrived in the capital and I was ushered into a building that later I learnt was Syrian intelligence headquarters. I had been given ill-fitting clothes on my release and as no shoes of my size (14) could be found I had to wear a pair with the back flattened, like a pair of sandals. “What can we get for you?” said an official who handed me a glass of oversweetened tea. Not having had a proper haircut for years I said that, before anything else, was what I wanted. An orderly was dispatched and returned with a street barber who cut my hair and trimmed my beard. Now, despite my shabby appearance, I felt able to face the world once again.

Five years of virtually total isolation is, of course, somewhat different from 16 months of lockdown restrictions, but there are similarities. Back in captivity one lived day by day with uncertainty. I was often told that I was to be released the next week and nothing happened. This happened so frequently that I said that I would only believe something when it actually took place. Last month many people were disappointed as the promised easing of restrictions on June 21 was delayed. Lockdown has faced many people with acute uncertainty. Jobs have been on the line. Businesses have been threatened. Young people’s futures have been compromised. For some this will be the first time that they have experienced such uncertainty and it has been deeply unsettling. Yet even after tomorrow’s so-called Freedom Day that uncertainty is to continue. The reality is that life is uncertain and one way to cope with this is to learn to live it as fully as possible one day at a time.

From Syria I flew to Cyprus and after a brief medical check in the military hospital flew on to RAF Lyneham to be reunited with my wife and children plus several other family members and friends. Quite frankly, it was too much to bear. After spending years in solitary confinement I simply could not face meeting so many people, let alone sit down for a meal with them. I was given a room of my own and for the first several days ate alone. This may seem very strange and indeed may have been somewhat hurtful to those who came to welcome me back into their world. However, looking back I think it was right. Someone once told me that when you come out of an experience of trauma, take it as though you are coming up from the sea bed – if you come up too quickly you get the bends.

There is no doubt in my mind that lockdown has been a very difficult time for many. Overnight, my busy programme of travelling to a variety of different events at home and abroad was cancelled or postponed indefinitely, and I was alone in our home in the Suffolk countryside. But captivity taught me that hidden within difficult experiences one frequently finds the seeds of new opportunities. Sometimes it takes a crisis to enable us to find and unlock them.

Through Hostage International, which I co-founded years ago, I was able to have weekly Zoom meetings