Sir Terry Waite recalls news 'tapped on cell wall'

Sir Terry White arrives at RAF Lyneham after being released following nearly five years in captivity

Former Beirut hostage Sir Terry Waite has been recalling how news from the BBC World Service was tapped out in code on a wall for him by a fellow captive.

Sir Terry, 86, says the BBC World Service broadcasts from the transmitter station in Daventry, Northamptonshire, gave him hope while he was chained to a wall in darkness day and night.

Sir Terry, who now lives near Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, was released in 1991 after 1,763 days in captivity in Lebanon.

This week sees the centenary of the opening of the station at Daventry.

As the Archbishop of Canterbury's special envoy, Sir Terry went to Lebanon in 1987 to try to secure the release of hostages, but ended up in captivity himself.

He told BBC Radio Northampton's Annabel Amos that the conditions he was kept in were very basic.

"I was kept in a dark room, sometimes below ground, sometimes above ground, in a bombed-out building," he said.

"I slept on the floor, I was in the dark most of the time, I was blindfolded and chained by the hands and feet to a wall for 23 hours and 50 minutes a day."

"Looking back, I wonder how I survived it."

Sir Terry was alone in a dark cell, chained to the wall, for most of his captivity

With no access to books, newspapers, television or radio, Sir Terry was completely isolated from the outside world.

But then he discovered there were other hostages in the next cell, and he decided to try to communicate with them without the guards finding out.

He said: "I began to tap on the wall: one for A, two for B.

"It's then you regret your name is Terry Waite because it's a long way down the alphabet!"

It took about two years of laboriously tapping out his name before someone responded.

Sir Terry (back left) was reunited with fellow hostages John McCarthy (back right), and Brian Keenan (front right) for a BBC radio programme.

The hostages next door turned out to be the British journalist John McCarthy and the Irish writer Brian Keenan, who had heard Sir Terry's tapping but had been unable to respond until one of them was chained next to the wall.

"They had a small radio," said Sir Terry, "and they were able to get the World Service.

"They used to communicate with me by tapping on the wall and telling me the latest news."

Just before the end of his captivity, Sir Terry became ill and was given a small radio.

The first time he turned it on, he heard a broadcast of Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius: "That was the first music I'd heard for years, and I remember how much it brought me some comfort and some harmony into my life."

The BBC World Service programmes heard by Sir Terry in Lebanon were broadcast from Daventry

Sir Terry Waite visited Daventry and met BBC staff in 2011

After his release, Sir Terry visited Daventry to thank the BBC team for transmitting the radio programmes that became his lifeline.

He said the Daventry station was "fulfilling a valuable function around the world - long may it continue".

The centenary of the opening of the Daventry transmitting station takes place on Sunday. The World Service is now broadcast from Woofferton in Shropshire.