Even if they'd been able to, Rachel still didn't want to give the gang their money. No, it took me time to come round to it. I'm not sure I've ever met a more strikingly intimate couple than the Chandlers. Married for 31 years, with no children, they leave you with the sense that they have only ever needed each other, and differences of opinion are accommodated within an equanimity of intellectual respect.
They get into quite a debate about the moral distinction between survival and greed when Paul says he always saw their kidnap as a "purely commercial transaction", no more deviant in the context of Somalia than a business deal would be in London. It did really irritate me, the fact that these young men had no idea — no idea — what they were doing to us. We suppress our inborn instinct to fight for every last morsel. But for them, after decades of total lawlessness, there are no consequences for wrongdoing.
From Paul's Hobbesian perspective, the pirates weren't morally flawed so much as financially misinformed. For example, they couldn't understand why we couldn't raise a lot of money. They said: 'Britain population 60 million — one man, one dollar. That's the basis of their existence. So that was their genuine belief. The couple describe a topsy-turvy cultural confusion about money, so farcical as to be funny under any other circumstances.
The pirates considered themselves poor, and the Chandlers rich — but if anything, Paul says, it was the other way around. There is a Somali word for thousand which they don't even use.
When they say , they mean half a million. Compared with what they'd spent, it was peanuts. The Chandlers' relatives have flatly refused to tell them who donated what, because they won't let them repay a penny. Money being famously emotive within families — and as none of the Chandlers' own money was used — this strikes me as impressive, but Rachel explains: "They were really worried when we got back that we'd be angry, broken people.
They were really worried about us being able to start again, so they made the decision. After the initial euphoria of freedom, they suffered no emotional crash; no flashbacks or haunting memories, no survivors' guilt or gnawing humiliation. Paul does acknowledge that his primitive masculine sense of duty to protect was damaged by the kidnap, but says he carries no shame.
I've never been very big. Taking on 30 men with Kalashnikovs would be rather a foolish thing to do. They are living in the house of Paul's father, who died just months before their release — but by the end of next year they plan to be back at sea again.
They know some will think they must be out of their minds, but Rachel explains: "There was never a moment when I thought I'd want to start a totally different life. What happened to us is an aberration. We want to go sailing again, we want to go cruising.
That is our life. We've written the book, and that was important to us, but being an ex-hostage is not going to rule our lives. But I don't want to be defined by that. We don't blame the Seychelles authorities for not warning us, we don't blame the government.
The fact of the matter is, the only people who are to blame in all of this are the criminals. It might have looked like chaos to the outsider, but when Paul wanted a particular edition of a particular book, the instruction of fourth pile from the left, sixth book from the bottom, always yielded the subject of his search. He treated his books with a reverence that was reserved only for his collections and spent hours not to mention a fair amount of money — having tattered, antique books restored.
Once restored, he would commission a bespoke cover, to ensure they were never damaged again. Paul was also known as a collector of antiquarian umbrellas. Paul was a very private man who fought his cancer with every fibre. He bore all the curve balls that his cancer threw him and it threw a couple with dignity and fortitude. He died, very peacefully, in the Trinity Hospice.
This site uses cookies to enhance your experience. By continuing to the site you accept their use. More info in our cookies policy. Registered Charity All rights reserved. But this memoir reminds us that it would be no less a tragedy if he had been drunk that morning; nor less if he had still been using crack. Life is to be embraced in its full messiness. Last summer, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, the illness that killed her mother when Aitkenhead was a child of nine.
She has completed treatment and is now cancer-free. Autobiography and memoir. All at Sea by Decca Aitkenhead review — an inspiring memoir, never sentimental. Tony and Decca with Jake and Joe in , a few days after Joe was born. Photograph: Courtesy of Decca Aitkenhead. Claire Messud. Sat 7 May Topics Autobiography and memoir Bereavement Death and dying reviews.
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