Deborah Richardson

And they desperately missed their parents, those that had parents.

And we told our story.

And it was actually John Farnham, Sarah, that heard our story and was touched by that, who knew Nikki Lauda, who owned Lauda Air.

And they said, we will get you a plane and we will get it straight home to Kiev in Ukraine so it doesn't need to go via Moscow.

They absolutely were.

And most of them didn't have telephones.

Certainly Yuri's family didn't have a telephone.

we ended up finding a neighbour somewhere that had one and so we would kind of communicate that way.

But they were absolutely desperate to have their children home.

It was heartbreaking, absolutely heartbreaking.

He became our son, Sarah, during that time.

He was absolutely mine.

He put on five kilos.

All of a sudden he was healthy.

He was going home with bag loads of clothes and Lego and all sorts of things.

And I think we've got a videotape, would you believe, of the news stories.

And there's one moment out at the airport where they interviewed me and I'm crying and also heavily pregnant, but crying saying, you know, I don't want him to go home.

He's my son now, but I knew he needed to get home to his family.

Yeah.

I mean, this is really pre-internet days, isn't it?