"Taken on Trust"

I have just finished a book.

It was one of those glorious biographies that yank your heart deep to the guts of someone else's soul. I spluttered out of its covers yesterday night on my metro home. I now have this disconcerting feeling that I know Terry Waite, and have sat many hours at his side (it's wierd how some books seem able to do that).

There have been some days in the last two weeks when I felt like a reluctant visitor who felt obliged to feel some of the hopelessness and utter sadness of the chains he wore and the room with no sunlight or human company even despite my own will. It was unnerving and although I cannot even begin to imagine what solitary confinement or years of imprisonment and uncertainty is like I don't think anyone can read that book without its residues seeping into parts of your life.

Yet again I disgraced japanese sense of propriety and sat grasping hold of the book on my metro, tears streaming down my cheeks as the final chapter said its goodbyes and its thank yous. I wasn't in Tokyo at all, but in Beirut in 1991, standing with the others who gathered to listen to the first speech Terry Waite made on his emergence from captivity.