Sarah: Tom had been travelling round the world collecting
plant specimens for nearly two years before he was captured. In that time
we’d spoken only twice on the phone. I didn’t expect there to be more of a
connection. He was 24 but he was a late developer and this trip was his time
to grow.
We are all very independent in our family. That’s not to say we’re not close,
but the children got used to doing their own thing because I was always so
terribly busy.
We first opened the house to the public the Easter that Tom was born; we
couldn’t afford any help, so I did all the cleaning and made the teas
myself. The public came first, family second — that’s how it’s always been.
When we heard that Tom had disappeared, I felt such guilt. I thought: “My God,
why didn’t we do something sooner?” The parents of Paul Winder, who was
captured with Tom, eventually tracked us down. They’d hacked into Paul’s
e-mail and realised something was badly wrong. I remember that day very
clearly. I’d met friends for tea in Lewes with my daughter, and when we got
back, my husband said he’d had a call from Paul’s parents. Knowing how
dangerous that part of the world is, he was in a terrible state. For some
reason I was very calm. I just tried to concentrate on the enormous amount
there was to do. In the next weeks and months, we accumulated mountains of
paperwork. We hired private investigators who, when they couldn’t find any
clues, would make something up. It was terribly cruel. There was no ransom
demand, nothing. Yet I couldn’t believe he was dead. Another mother asked
me: “How can you get up in the mornings?” Strangely, it wasn’t difficult.
Throughout it all, the house was open and the show had to go on. My lowest
point was when I flew out to Colombia to hunt for Tom. He had been missing
for three months, I had lost a lot of weight and I felt so ill that I could
hardly move.
Although I didn’t find Tom, the people I met out there were wonderful and I
gained such strength from them. I like to think the men who held Tom and
Paul finally released them out of compassion. It’s the mothers who keep
everything together in Bogota, and there is no question the news that Tom’s
mother was searching for him filtered through.
I think the moment of bonding after birth is crucial to a relationship, and
with Tom it wasn’t instant. It was a long labour followed by a forceps
delivery. Afterwards I wasn’t able to hold him; he went straight to his
father. It was later when he lay in his cot following me with his eyes that
we bonded, and I’ve always held onto that image. But that rocky start
affected our relationship. I wasn’t always very nice to him. I got cross, I
smacked him — not often, but he had a lot of frustration as a child, as he
does now, and it wasn’t easy. There was tremendous rivalry between him and
his sister, and he was terribly shy, and less confident than her, yet
stubborn too, and he appeared not to want to earn — unless it was something
to do with plants. I think subconsciously I connected that very difficult
birth with this rather awkward little boy. And he may well have found me
uncaring because of the pressure I put on him.
Tom’s granny, my mother, was his refuge; she had the time to encourage his
love of plants and I’m sure he felt closer to her than to me. She had twin
sons, one was killed at 25, and in a way, Tom has filled a gap. I understand
that, but it’s meant I’ve always shared him.
One day, when Tom had been missing for about five months, I started to go
through some old photographs and I came across one of him taken in the
woodland behind the house. He must have been about five, a very uncertain
time in his life when he was at odds with everything. This little face
looked out at me and I thought: “Oh, Tom. I really love you and I always
have.” I just didn’t feel I’d ever told him how much.
Meanwhile, all these boxes of seeds were arriving home and I stood in Tom’s
room and thought: “My God, I’m going to have to deal with all this…” That
mission of seed-collecting was so important to him. The trail kept hotting
up and then going quiet. You almost dreaded getting news in case it was
negative.
I sat in bed one night that October and I shouted: “Oh Tom, where are you?”
And I had the most extraordinary experience. The door opened and there was a
slight breeze and this sort of jungly smell. It was very tangible. I would
describe it as God’s messenger — I had this terrific sense of wellbeing. It
was two months before we had word Tom and Paul had been found, but I wasn’t
worried any more. That experience was confirmation Tom was alive.
By the time the boys were released on December 10, the Winders were organising
a memorial service for Paul.
I actually had to get the British embassy to fax us confirmation they’d been
found, because there had been so many cruel hoaxes. When we met Tom at the
airport, it was as if nothing had happened. And there were no tears: we were
way beyond that. In a spiritual sense, it was a moment of healing and
reconciliation.
After Tom came home, nothing in our family could go back to where it was. And
that’s been a good thing. Perhaps it’s taken us all these years to be how
we’d really like to be with each other.
Tom is very special and, as a little group of three, he and his father and I
work perfectly together. It’s a treat, it really is, and the success of the
work Tom’s done here has made for a wonderful relationship between us all. I
sometimes think it would be nice if Tom could dress a little more smartly;
if he has to wear evening dress, for instance, he’ll top it off with a
little cap. He’s still very stubborn. There is a point beyond which he won’t
concede. I know he finds my church leanings very difficult. My return to
faith has been brewing for many years, but when he was captured it really
came to the fore and it’s been a huge strength to me. I’d like to think he
understands that now. Sharing how you feel is the hardest thing, but I’m far
better at that than I was. The main thing is, I accept Tom totally for who
he is and I love him unconditionally. I think that’s the least you can do
for your children.
Tom: I had a cool upbringing. Very free. My parents never
said: “Look, Tom, this is the right knife to eat with, or you should wear
this or talk like that.” When I was at college studying to be a tree
surgeon, I had friends who stole cars for a living and others who owned half
the county. I just don’t understand the class thing. I’m blind to it. If I
meet someone I like, it’s “Do you want to see my pansies? Lets go!” You
could be a prince or a window cleaner — what does it matter?
Granny got me onto growing things. She bought me a packet of carrot seeds and
a trowel when I was three, and that was it. I think my parents found me
quite difficult.
My school reports went something like: “It would help if Tom was indoors when
exams are being sat.” The problem was the orchids: they distracted me during
the growing season.
It’s quite deceptive, this place [Lullingstone Castle]. There’s no money at
all. People expect servants to appear, but there aren’t any. In recent years
it’s been Mum, Dad, me and Granny doing everything. Mum does all the
cleaning, unblocks the toilets, the lot. When I was little she ran the
tearooms. Everything was home-made and if you saw the kitchen she worked
from, you’d wonder how she did it. The house always came first. If I wanted
her to do something, it was: “Sorry Tom, but we’re open.” I used to
disappear down the garden and find my own dinner later, if I remembered.
We lived in the old servants’ quarters on the third floor. Mum’s life centred
on keeping everything going, and it’s been a struggle. It’s only this last
year things have turned around a bit, and that’s to do with my plant
collection and the building of the World Garden. I find it bizarre that the
idea for it came at a time when I didn’t even think I was going to survive.
I’d saved £8,000 to go to southeast Asia and was given various
grants to bring back rare plant specimens and information about their
habitat in the wild. The grants structured where I went and how long for. I
went to Indonesia, had a year in Australia, and then went to the Americas.
My second phone call in two years was to tell Mum I wouldn’t be home for the
millennium. It’s a Hart Dyke thing. We’re so independent. When I was at
college I came home twice a year and no one batted an eyelid.
To this day we don’t know who captured us. We were ambushed a few hours from
the Colombian border; we had M-16s pressed to our heads and we were bound
and dragged back and forth through the jungle for 91/2 months. They were
very strange people, our captors. Over the time, there were hundreds of
them, all barking. They were terrifyingly chaotic. They wanted money, so I
wrote ransom notes for them, but they were too disorganised to post them.
Paul Winder said that as far as he was concerned, his parents didn’t exist.
Psychologically he had to distance himself to survive. Thinking about home
was just too painful. I tried to think about the garden, but that just led
to thoughts of cream teas and Mum and Granny. In the end, Paul and I both
said: “Right, they’re dead and we’re here.” As a tactic it was brutal but it
worked brilliantly.
My survival technique was much more extrovert than Paul’s. With the permission
of the comandante, I brought back orchids from the forest and I soon had an
orchid collection to rival Kew Gardens’. I was trying to prove we weren’t
drug runners or CIA agents. Our biggest fear was that the army would search
for us and we would be all shot.
It had happened so many times before that we feared anyone trying to find us.
I knew Mum wouldn’t ever accept that I was dead. And after we were released I
found that was the case, even though everyone around her had given up. But I
can’t blame them. There had never been a case before where people had
survived after being held for so long.
Not once did I imagine that Mum might come to find me. I never even considered
what she was doing or how she felt. But then it’s often very difficult to
tell what’s really going on inside. When we reached the British ambassador’s
residence in Bogota, we spoke on the phone for the first time in three
years. It was very strange. I couldn’t help feeling there should have been
more emotion, but she was completely calm, as if I’d left yesterday. It was
literally: “Hi, Tom, how’s it been?” “Oh, it’s been okay.”
When I got home I had terrible dreams — Mum and Dad being lined up and shot
outside the church, that kind of thing. I’d expected them to sit me down and
give me a huge rollicking, but there was nothing. And nobody pressed me with
questions either. Mum’s way is to be completely calm and not to make a fuss.
It was a while before I realised she had flown to Colombia on her own. She had
become an investigator. She had files and files of stuff, which must have
consumed so much of her energy and time. That’s when I cried. It made me
realise how much she cared. It was pretty nasty in the jungle — crazy days
when we really didn’t know if we’d live or die. I feel quite sad that it
took such an extreme situation to make me realise how much we care about
each other.
