Sean Langan

And when we come back, you're either dead or you're alive.

waiting for someone to come back who was always late.

He would say, I'm coming back on Wednesday and you'll know then whether you're going to be killed or not.

Well, that's waiting for your own death and then he's late is just maddening.

So I would not think of time.

I was aware of it though, but I wouldn't be so focused.

I'd focus on my daily routine, bonding with the families, but I would hear the radio.

So I knew how long we'd been in there.

during the captivity of the initial being told you're kidnapped and then settled into routine but that you know where i was spent every day bonding with the family and every time they came in because here's the thing i discovered in all my travels in regions where they be fighting the west there's this always wherever you go especially in that part of the world a real love hate fascination with

our world i think we've burned through this good will from the world towards the west but whether it's the bbc or our democracy and human rights people and our movies and culture there was a great pool of uh around the world of admiration and a connection to that you know the beacon on the hill they once described america so i don't think it's called that anymore of

the values are universal values so and of course in that part of the world they love the bbc they listen to the bbc world service so at night when the family came in initially would hated me looked down at me i would tell them stories about life in the west and they were fascinated couldn't you know i told them about the london underground they thought i was it's like they'd be dragons you know i thought about the london eye they thought i'd made it all up but

We bonded and I never forget one night talking and I felt I was on stage the whole time and a baby cries outside and I got my hand in the air just gesticulating about some story and then I hear this baby cry and I close my hand and say, that's the sound all babies make around the world and they cry.

Probably the pivotal moment in bonding with the family came about just by chance.

So the Taliban commander had a list of questions he was given that we had to answer.

And these were like 28 questions.

And you really felt it was an exam.

got the questions answers wrong your life depended on it but a lot of the questions were proof of life this is for them to negotiate and it allows them to kill you and still get a ransom because they they get all the work like your favorite pet as a child where you grew up sort of thing a hostage negotiator would ask so i was aware a lot of the interrogation questions were what's them getting proof of life information the names of my school other stuff they were

interrogating, wanting to know what I knew about security matters in that part of the world, military, so I don't know anything.

So they came in one night, and it was the Taliban commander, two armed Taliban, and the family of the house, which were five men, all sitting there at night.

So we were sitting on the carpet,