Newspaper Article

MY TWO DOOMED DARLINGS

Attenborough, Richard

2008

نظرة عامة

Michael, Jane and Charlotte -- when they were small. It's something I wish I could go back and change. I bitterly regret I didn't see my kids as much as I should have done, that I didn't make more of an effort. I was so sure they'd always be there and, whatever I missed, could be made up later on. Stupidly, I always thought there'd be plenty of time... [Diana Hawkins], Attenborough's co-author continues: IT WAS December 2004. Dick had just completed the annual task of signing every one of the 1,000 Christmas cards he and [Sheila] send out to friends and family around the world. Then, on Sunday, December 19, his diary notes innocently: 'Pre-Christmas lunch with Jane, Beau and family.' Jane, his elder daughter, and her shipbroker husband Michael, known as Beau, were off to spend the festive season in sunnier climes with their teenage children, Sam, Alice and [Lucy Holland]. Dick and Sheila went over to their house in Putney for a turkey dinner before they set off. Christmas lunch is an important ritual for the Attenbor- Diana wasn't thick -- she was wise beyond her years but, after an hour, he refused to go any further. ough family. The sand all around was littered with hunks of twisted metal, splintered trees and corpses. Almost immediately, he came across his drowned 15-year-old daughter, Lucy. He then saw his other daughter, Alice, still alive but very badly injured, being loaded into a truck. Abandoning the desperate search for his wife and mother, whose bodies would not be identified for many months to come, Beau followed Alice to the local hospital. It was from there, some time later, that he was finally able to phone his brother-in-law, Michael Attenborough, in London. The last entry in Dick's 2004 diary is for December 26. Planning to attend his beloved Chelsea's Boxing Day match at Stamford Bridge, he'd noted the name of the visiting team, Aston Villa. This had now been savagely inked out until it was barely legible. Beneath it he had written, heartbreakingly: 'Tsunami disaster. Lost Jane, Lucy and Jane Holland.' Lord Attenborough continues: SHEILA and I were having breakfast on Boxing Day morning when I heard the back doorbell ring. I saw my son through the glass, looking very odd. I opened the door, knowing something awful had happened. And Michael said very gently: 'Dad, will you go and sit down, please?' He followed me into the dining room where Sheila was and continued: 'I'm afraid I have something dreadful to tell you both. Jane and Lucy have died in the tsunami.' I'm not sure we knew what a tsunami was. And we weren't even aware that they were in Thailand, only that they had gone somewhere far away and sunny. Then Michael went on to tell us what he'd learned from Beau. And that is all I remember of that terrible morning, except that it was the worst day of my life. My memory of it is so completely blank -- I've obviously buried it very deeply. It was our diamond wedding later that month and it turned out that Jane had been organising a huge surprise party. As time has gone on, we've found that we're able to talk about Jane and Lucy, recall them, rather than saying they're gone and mustn't be mentioned. We can't do that with other people around, but if we're alone we can talk as much as we like and let our emotions well up, spend the whole day with tears pouring down our faces, if need be. This is how we've managed to cope. The last time I saw Jane, she was bustling around her kitchen, cooking us that early Christmas dinner. You ask yourself, over and over, where have they gone? They were here, their being was here. They can't just be wiped out. And yet they are. It would have been easier if I'd had a religious faith. But you can't suddenly switch faith on. You can say, yes,

• الناشر: Solo Syndication, a division of Associated Newspapers Ltd
• موضوع: Attenborough, Richard / Dickie, Dearest / Hawkins, Diana / Holland, Lucy / Michael, Jane