This is an article I did for the ‘Penned Up’ magazine called ‘An audience with Terry Waite’. Click below to see the full glossy article in it’s original format. Scroll down for the text only version.
An audience with Terry Waite : Text only version
I was asked to introduce Terry Waite to a packed room. While public speaking is not usually a problem for me, as I started to speak I found myself struggling for words – an uncomfortable bind for any Irishman! I was talking about the iconic images from my lifetime. Those seminal moments, those anchoring points in our personal history that only increase in their significance through the passage of time. In my lifetime I have witnessed horrendous events like the 7/7 London bombings, the fall of the Twin Towers and the Death of Lady Diana. However there were many positive landmarks like the fall of the Berlin Wall, Nelson Mandela’s walk to freedom, the signing of the Peace Accord in Northern Ireland and Ray Houghton’s goal against England in Stuttgart at Euro 88.
As I was introducing Terry Waite I think I realised that I was actually introducing THE Terry Waite! The latter years of my teens had been punctuated by news of Terry’s on-going kidnap. There were almost nightly bulletins, opinion pieces, documentary specials – but little or no significant progress was ever being made. Finally – and against all realistic hopes and expectations – Terry Waite stepped off a British Airways Jet at RAF Brize Norton after 1,763 days in captivity. Another seminal moment in my lifetime.
Terry came to our prison to share his experiences with us. “I have been asked many questions about my time in captivity. One of which was what I missed most during that time. Of course I missed my family, my friends and my freedom. But what I missed most were books.” Terry Waite described how he had been a voracious reader and struggled to keep well both mentally and physically. Eventually, after 4 years in captivity, one kindly guard helped. “To be seen buying an English language book in Beirut was a very dangerous thing, it would pass through many hands before it came to me. Also, none of them could read English, so they didn’t know what it was they were buying. I had a blindfold that I had to lower over my eyes every time that somebody came into the cell. This kindly guard dropped a book by my side. When I peeped from under the blindfold I saw that he had given me “Great Escapes from World War II.”’
When the next books related to childcare and breastfeeding, Terry realised that the buyer at the bookstore must have latched on to the child care section. But how does one suggest book titles when the buying chain can’t read English? “I asked the guard for a pencil and paper. It was only the second time that I had had anything to write with. I thought for a moment, then I drew a picture of a Penguin. I told the guard that any book that had that picture on the spine will be a good book. After that I had a supply of Penguin classics. It made me appreciate the value of trademarks and symbols across different cultures and civilisations.”
Terry had been an envoy, a negotiator and an ambassador for many years before his kidnap. He had worked in Vietnam, the Philippines and Idi Amin’s Uganda. One of his key roles was to negotiate the release of Western hostages. He had previously secured the release of three doctors – Jane Woodall, Audrey Coleman and Gene Coleman in Iran. The trio had been identified (wrongly) as spies and suffered brutal treatment. “When you enter into any negotiation, you must weigh up the risks. You could end up captured or dead. You must accept the consequences before you do it.” In January 1987 Terry arrived in Beirut to negotiate the release of three journalists, John McCarthy, Brian Keenan and Terry Anderson. They had been kidnapped by Hezbollah. During early negotiations, Terry was assured safe passage to visit the captives. He was told that one of them was gravely ill. He was given a day to make a decision. Terry weighed up his options, he knew he was putting himself at jeopardy, but he reasoned that he would never have been able to live with himself if he had not tried to see this man – to offer some help. “When you go to a meet you are blindfolded and driven for miles. Then you are swapped into
another car and driven to a safe house. There you are stripped and you and your clothes are checked for locator devices. If any are found you will be shot. Then you are given a change of clothes. You are then driven again to a new location and put in a darkened room. There you wait, for hours or even days.” In this instance though, Terry described how he was moved after 4 or 5 days. He was put in a van and transported to what he thought was a garage in a large apartment block.
“I was dropped through a trap door and into a cell that was tiled from floor to ceiling. This was bad news, I knew that they used tiled rooms for torture as they were easy to clean down. It was then that I realised I had made the transition from
negotiator to hostage.” Terry was kept in a cell that was too small to stand up in. “For 23 hours and 50 minutes of every day I was chained to the wall. I slept on the bare floor. I had ten minutes each day to use the toilet – otherwise I had a bucket to use. There weren’t any windows in my cell, I relied on the call to prayer from a local mosque to mark the passage of time. I was forbidden to speak.” “For the first week I went on hunger strike. They had promised me safe passage and they broke their word. I was angry. It was my way of defying them. While they might have had control of my body, my person, I still needed to be in control of something. But after a week they were threatening to force feed me and I began to cool my anger.”
At this point Terry read a short poem that encapsulates his transition from anger.
ANGER.
Be still,
Listen to the inner voice
learn to love
Let compassion
Guide your actions.
Walk calmly
Through the mists
Of unknowing,
The Kingdom is yours.
But while Terry was trying to turn his anger into something positive his situation worsened. “For the first year I was tortured. They would suffocate me while they whipped the soles of my feet. They were convinced that I was an agent or spy of some sort. It was after this first year that I was given a pencil and paper for the first time. It was during my mock execution. My captors came to me one morning and told me that I would die in 5 hours. I allowed my body to take over, to protect me. I slept. I suppose what must have been 5 hours later I was told to cover my eyes and I could sense that there were a large number of people in my cell. I thought that it was the end. I was asked if there was anything I would like to do before I died. I asked for a pencil and wrote a letter to my friends and family. They again asked me if there was anything else I wanted. My throat was dry, so I asked for a drink of water. Again they asked if there was anything else. I knelt and recited the Lord’s Prayer. When I was finished I felt something pressed against my neck, then suddenly it was removed and I heard one of the men say, “Not today. Maybe tomorrow.” The men simply filed out of my cell and left me in the dark again.”
Listening to Terry speak, I found that there were many remarkable things I learned about his time in captivity. Foremost was how he managed to find positives and humour in his experiences. In fact, he had been saddened by the execution of one of his jailers. This man had been skimming money from the allowance for feeding the prisoners. When he was found out he was shot.
“I was determined that there would be no self-pity. I wouldn’t blame anybody or anything else for my situation. I had another rule that I would not be over-sentimental, thinking things like ‘I should have been a better father, or husband.’ In order to stay alive I had to stay mentally alive. I puzzled out large multiplications in my mind. I wrote my first book, ‘Taken on Trust’ entirely in my mind.”
As time passed, Terry began to communicate with some of the other people being held in the cells next to his. They developed a rudimentary code of tapping on walls and pipes. Terry realised he was being held with the men he had come to see. One of them had a radio which meant that they could at least keep up with some of the goings on in the outside world.
After he spoke, Terry answered questions from the audience. He finished by describing how he met one of his captors when he returned to Beirut years later. Rather than lay blame or vent his anger, Terry spoke to the man. He negotiated with him and managed to secure a delivery of heating oil for a group of nearby refugees. Speaking about his captors, Terry said, “They were indoctrinated into this life from an early age. They had little chance. While I disagreed with what they did, I understood their reasons for doing it. It is only by talking with enemies and by listening that we can understand each other.”
Terry Waite is a giant of a man, physically and in terms of personality. But his gentle nature and charisma endeared him to every audience member. After the talk he posed for photos and waited patiently, spending a moment with everyone who wished to speak to him. His humility in describing his incarceration make many of the complaints about the UK prison system seem churlish by comparison. In order to change our situation, perhaps we should first change our own perspective.
