How long did it take to reach Somalia?
RACHEL: It was six full days at sea on our boat, then another 36 hours on their boat.
Were you more or less fearful when you reached land?
RACHEL: I was more fearful because they were taking us into a lawless country and I felt there was no hope of getting out of there. Some of the gang was saying we'd fetch $4 million, no problem. I wanted them to realize they'd got a pair of lemons who were a waste of their time. That kind of kept me going.
How were your living conditions in Somalia?
RACHEL: They bought us a thin mattress and a blanket and fed us. We were taken to a one-room mud village hut with a tin roof. They were always threatening us that other Islamist militias or al-Shabab would take us from them. They gave us water from a reservoir to wash with and bought us bottled water and fed us bread and rice and we started to get used to eating goat stew for breakfast.
When you live on board a sailboat, you're used to living very basic, so I think that helped us deal with life in the bush. They knew they had to keep us alive if they were to make any money out of us.
And I understand they separated you. After that, how did you pass the time?
PAUL: During all my time in Somalia, I only slept badly a few times. So that was half the day. You wash up, and then read. We had five books and we divided them between us when we were split up. I took to reading them aloud because it takes more time. You get more out of books if you read them several times. We listened to the BBC and the VOA.
Rachel had cards; I spent time compiling crosswords. We were split up the first time and were kept apart for ten days, that's when they put pressure on me to come up with money, so I was commanded to start making begging phone calls to my friends and relatives.
Later they separated us again and Rachel was beaten and whipped and we were kept apart for three months. They dragged us apart kicking and screaming. I had a choice, I said, 'I can either sink into a well of despair or I can survive.'
The gang leader was a criminal and the rest of them were all along looking for a free lunch. None of them had seen white people or been out of Somalia. The eight gangsters guarding me eventually became relaxed and to some extent there was a bit of, sort of, friendship. They couldn't understand why I was so depressed to be separated from Rachel – they had no idea how close we were. We've been married 31 years now.
And finally, after being in captivity for more than a year, a Somali man living in London secured your release?
PAUL: That's Dahir. A wonderful man and a honorary member of our family. One morning, we had a long drive across the country and we hoped we were going to be released. Our hopes had been dashed before though, so we didn't want to get our hopes up too high. We had to sleep overnight in the car out in the bush and we woke up the next morning and a man walked towards us holding what looked like a British passport.
He said, "I'm Dahir, I come from East London. I've come to take you home." It was quite amazing – brings tears to my eyes even now. We found out that eight months before, his 12-year-old son came home and told his father 'I'm ashamed to be Somali, can't you do something to help?' (to help the people who were taken hostage.)
He's from the area we were being held in. He had the contacts to help us and he moved to Mogadishu and got to work using his contacts to help us. It took him eight months to arrange our release and our families knew nothing about it until a few days before he arrived to get us.
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