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No, it’s not a typo — I’ll explain the pun behind this blog title in a minute…bear with me just a bit…
One of the interesting things about being on a cruise are the guest lecturers who join us throughout our journey. These lecturers are a varied lot…some are people who have interesting stories to tell about subjects that resonate with “cruisers”. Some are celebrities who don’t mind telling a bit about their life’s exploits in order to get a very nice “free” vacation. And some are experts in a particular field who are here to educate and entertain us.
Above: Terry Waite in line to get on the tender to join the Mariner in Belize.
On this Circle South America cruise we have been fortunate to have a fellow (and, it turns out he really is a Visiting Fellow at Magdalen College, Oxford!) named Terry Waite on board for the entire cruise. He has to be one of the most interesting people we have ever met. He has a fantastic life story and a bigger than life personality.
For those who are up for some reading you can go to the Wikipedia article on Terry at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Waite and another outlining his accomplishments to date at: http://www.roycecarlton.com/speaker/Terry-Waite-Curriculum-Vitae/
To save you time, and, to complete my blog entry for today, I will try to paraphrase the highlights of what is contained in these articles and throw in some of my personal commentary to boot!
Terry was born in 1939, the son of a village policeman in the North of England around Liverpool and Manchester. Having left school at 16 and being discharged from the Grenadier Guards because of an allergy to the dye in the uniforms he obtained a degree in theology but decided against ordainment.
His first job was an adviser on adult education to the bishop of Bristol. Working in Africa for the bishop of Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi it became clear that Terry wasn’t afraid of taking on high-risk endeavors. While traveling extensively throughout East Africa Terry, who was in Africa with his wife and children at the time, witnessed Idi Amin’s coup, was taken hostage and he and his family narrowly escaped death on several occasions. And I thought my first job working at an ice cream store when I was 15 was exciting!
In the early 70’s he worked for the Catholic Church as a traveling consultant on missionary work and in 1980 the Archbishop of Canterbury appointed him secretary to work with churches abroad and to organize the archbishop’s foreign trips. This turned out to be the beginning of his role as a media figure as he was asked to and eventually played the key role in securing the release of several people from Tehran and, after assisting with the release of the fourth hostage, he became awarded special recognition as a Member of the Order of the British Empire.
In 1984 he made contact with Colonel Muammar Gadffi in Libya where he secured the release of four Britons had been detained. He had a way of making friends with some very suspicious characters. It must have been his rapid-fire approach to story telling and his ability to seamlessly deliver “one liners” that you can’t help but be intrigued and chuckle along with his infectious laughter.
He then took efforts to get the release of four American hostages held in Lebanon, a process that involved him contacting Oliver North. There is some intrigue related to whether he knew of the Iran Contra activities but, as I learned in his lectures on the ship, he strongly claims that he knew nothing of this and, in fact, was surprised and ultimately captured and held hostage himself for 5 years partly because he unknowingly walked into a “minefield”. A large percentage of this time was in solitary confinement in an empty and completely dark underground cell. He told us this story in one of his lectures, including methods he used to survive these trying times. He was eventually released (in 1991) along with the other hostages.
A funny aside was when he was taken hostage he had to be moved from one place to another. They tied, gagged and blindfolded him and tossed him (how you toss a guy his size into anything is beyond me!) in the trunk of a car. He landed with a thud as he mumbled to himself, “there’s not much room in here”. He heard another voice say, “There was plenty of room before you showed up!”. It seems he wasn’t the only captive being transferred that day. This type of story is typical of his great sense of humor and ability to spring it on your without notice!
Another humorous story is, after much cajoling, he convinced his captors to let him read some books. They tried to find something for him to read, but none were written in English. When they finally found him one in English it was, of all things, “The Great Escape”! They also brought him books by Dr. Spock (on child care) and some others on breast feeding…none of which were particularly pertinent given his situation. He eventually pointed to the “penguin” logo on the cover of the Penguin published books and after that they brought him just those types of books and he was much happier (well…at least as happy as you can be in solitary confinement).
After returning home, he took up a fellowship at Trinity Hall, Cambridge and started work on helping the poor and working for justice and reconciliation. Since then he has given himself to study, writing, lecturing, and humanitarian activities. He wrote an international best selling book “Taken on Trust” that detailed his negotiating style, capture and ultimate release and another on some of his humorous accounts of his more interesting travels in “Travels with Primates”.
There are many, many more interesting stories about Terry and he has certainly had his share of experiences with interesting people and challenging situations. I think you get the idea from this brief overview that he is one heck of a guy!
On the ship we see Terry nearly every day. He is out on the excursions, having meals with guests and I see him most everyday at the ice cream bar on the Pool Deck…one of my favorite spots as well. You can hear him frequently exercising his lungs with his full bodied laugh that cranks up slowly and then continues until such time as everyone around him is laughing as well. He is never at a loss for a humorous story or a clever joke and I sit in rapture (and a bit of envy) at his rapid fire approach that leaves me chuckling for hours. He is a unique human being who embodies a commitment to helping other people and breaking down the hatred and evil that spawns acts like hostage-taking. He is fearless and hopeful in situations that most anyone else would run from.
We had dinner with Terry last night and had a marvelous time. It was great to have the experience of sharing an evening with one of the true inspirational personalities of our era. We are planning a second dinner with him in a few days (at his request!) and I will be helping him and some of his buddies with his camera and image processing sometime over the next couple of days. We will certainly miss his presence when we leave the Mariner.
PS: More on this blog title justification
My original title for this blog entry was “Waiting on Terry” but, we didn’t really have to “wait” on Terry as he arrived on time for our dinner last night — but the waiters in the Compass Rose restaurant did “wait” on him thereby justifying the original “clever” title on this blog. In the end, however, that title lost out to the one above, although all of us actually did try to eat “lighter” last night to start working toward our “go home” weight target…but this story has absolutely nothing to do with gaining weight. In the end we gained a very enjoyable evening and look forward to more fun on board the Mariner with the Terrific Terry Waite!