‘Stubbornness and an inability to take no for an answer’ are the two things that Jill Morrell, one-time fiancée of former hostage John McCarthy, cites as the qualities that got her through his five years of captivity.
Jill Morrell speaks on the following topics:
On 17 April 1986 a British television journalist was kidnapped in Beirut. His name was John McCarthy and he was to remain a hostage for the next five years.For Jill Morrell, the five years of John’s captivity were hell: the initial shock and disbelief; the gradual acceptance that John had been taken and that her life was changed irrevocably, that all their plans had been shattered. But even as she began to pick up the threads of her life, she was refusing to give up hope.
For five years she battled with the mandarins of the Foreign Office; she and a group of friends launched the Friends of John McCarthy, and worked ceaselessly on the behalf of all the British hostages in the Middle East, until the extraordinary day in August 1991 when John McCarthy stepped down from an aeroplane at RAF Lyneham.
.Jill & John wrote “Some Other Rainbow” together after his release. Jill now works as Policy and Public Affairs Manager for Cancer Backup – Helping people live with Cancer.
Thank you Jill, incredible story of true determination and guts. Business Link
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