Published: Wednesday, 12th November, 2008 12:30
Gaza correspondent returns to Dollar Academy
By Melinda Tetley
Comments (0)
Print Article
BBC reporter Alan Johnston during his visit to Dollar Academy, with head boy Jamie Andrew and head girl Catriona Basquill.
Pic by: Dollar Academy
BBC REPORTER and Dollar Academy former pupil Alan Johnston recently attended Dollar Academy’s Form VI Dinner to speak to pupils about his ordeal of being kidnapped and held hostage by the Army of Islam in Gaza last year.
He also answered questions from pupils who were profoundly affected by his compelling account.
In the last days of a three-year assignment in Gaza, Johnston described how he was ambushed in an alley by men with Kalashnikov machine guns, taken to a flat “in the most dangerous part of the city” and confronted by a large man in a long white robe who had his face obscured and was interested in “what he had caught”.
During his incarceration of 114 days, Johnston was surrounded by young heavily-armed extremists who often argued about the fate of their hostage. There were times when he did not think he would survive and he spent many days mentally searching for reasons to be positive: he was alive, not being tortured, and he was not on a train heading to Auschwitz.
After several weeks of this psychological battle, Johnston talked about his relief when he was given a radio. He finally managed to tune it in, only to find out that the BBC were reporting he had been murdered by the terrorists.
During the next few hours – in the black of night locked in a room – he was sure that he soon would be killed. This was his “darkest hour” but then “dawn came and life went on”.
Over the coming weeks, he experienced many harrowing moments, including being put on TV while strapped into an exploding suicide jacket and a tense journey to freedom when he was taken out to a Hamas checkpoint in a car that he feared would be riddled with bullets at any moment.
During his account of this extraordinary trial, the audience of pupils and teachers was completely absorbed and deeply moved by his dignity, eloquence and courage. One year and three months since his release, Johnston described the lessons he has learned from this nightmare including that we have more strength than we can imagine, life is about loved ones, and the importance of enduring and forgiving.
Johnston attended Dollar Academy and then went on to receive an MA in English and Politics at Dundee University, where he had also been awarded an Honorary Doctor of Law degree in June this year.
His latest journalistic endeavour is presenting the radio programme ‘From Our Own Correspondent’ on the BBC World Service. He has also written a book ‘Kidnapped: And Other Dispatches’.
Del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Reddit
Stumbleupon
Woolies closure leaves 19 jobless