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Silence rarely spoke with such disdain. Yes, the drive had been bad: a constricting Dartford Tunnel and the interminable, roundabout-strewn wilderness of South Essex, before the relief of this gentle, historic landscape at the back of the East Anglican beyond. But now, in the stillness, a sense of calm prevailed. Making for the pretty cottages beside the village green, I felt my frustrations contract, shamed into remorse on this warm October afternoon.
This man here - tall, imposing, solicitous, face etched with weathered kindness - is the reason for my shame. The irritations of a morning gutter like the briefest of candles beside the blinding remembrance of what he once went through and survived. He may be just a yard short of 80, but as he locks the cottage door and escorts me across to the pub, Terry Waite is recognisably the man who languished in Lebanon for five captive years and lived to tell the soul-numbing tale.
"We still have our house in Blackheath too. My wife prefers London, but I like being in the country," he explains, limping pronouncedly. "That hill up there, that's the highest in Suffolk." Soup, sandwiches and smiles from the waitress follow. Waite must, I reflect, be the village celebrity, but there are no intrusive glances as we talk and eat. He has lived here too long for all of that, he says. And this, one feels certain, is how he likes it. For as the title and theme of his latest book make clear, Terry Waite has solitude in his sights.
The craving was forged from necessity. It's over 30 years since the baleful day when, while negotiating for the release of existing hostages on behalf of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Terry was himself seized by the Islamic Jihad and disappeared into the realm of nonbeing. Years of solitary confinement followed: years of being chained to walls, drenched in darkness and tedium and starved of books, defined the steadying landmarks of time and change. When he descended into hell, apartheid and communism still exerted an iron grip: by the time of his ascension Mandela was free, the Berlin Wall was down and the end of history was presumptuously about to be declared. Little wonder if solitary habits, thrust brutally upon him, were eventually embraced with relish.
"You become very introverted in such situations." he reflects. 'You're aware of your light and dark side - or the shadow side, as Jung called it. You have to find some harmony within."
In quest, thereof, Terry began writing in his head, discovering a latent bent for poetry and drawing upon his lifelong love of fine prose.
"The way to get through is to find some structure to the day and develop your mental capacities. I mean, you know you'll get a meal chucked at you and a trip to the bathroom, but beyond that, you have to say 'Right, this is thinking time,' or 'Right, this is exercise time,' or whatever. Mental writing and arithmetic kept my brain alive. You have to be as creative as you can."
Released in 1991 and free to travel again, Waite increasingly found himself drawn to vast empty spaces, such as the Northern Territory of Australia. In Solitude (SPCK), a thought-provoking volume of musings, he blends accounts of these journeys with an excursion into the chambers of the solitary heart. We meet spies constrained by subterfuge, people imprisoned by the legacy of evil - Stalin's daughter once lodged in Waite's home - and victims of contemporary urban loneliness, falling unheard through the pavement cracks, their identities flirting with extinction. Hostages with little hope of release.
"It's very important to be in touch with the Earth," insists Terry, drawing together these diverse threads. "Once we walked upon it barefoot. But then we put on shoes and we covered the ground with concrete, at each step getting more and more removed from our environment. We need to return occasionally to more primitive conditions."
It is disorientating to hear him talk in this semi-pagan way. The book contains similarly mystical traces: in describing solitude as "the harmony that is part of the music of creation", Waite sounds like Wordsworth 'in vacant or in pensive mood', waiting for the daffodils to 'flash upon that inward eye which is the bliss of solitude'. When, all those years ago, he emerged blinking from captivity to electrify a waiting press with tales of Bunyan in Bedford Gaol, it would be easy to mistake him for a person of orthodox faith. But the man who once served as the Primate of All England swims in stranger waters now and his primary affiliation is with the Quakers.
"Different faiths arise from different cultures, but God himself remains a mystery," he insists. "The way we begin to understand that is by telling stories - the doctrines and dogmas of particular religions are merely handrails for the journey to the divine spark within. Arguments are normally about the handrails, rather than about God himself."
A momentary twinkling of the eye, as he acknowledges the unorthodoxy of his views. Yes, he admits this would make him a heretic in many quarters. But the topic has clearly engaged him and he returns to it a few mouthfuls later.
"Look, I don't deny my Christian heritage - that is my story. But I don't see any need to emphasise it and insist that it's literally true. The incarnation story teaches us that God is interested in the individual; that he's not simply remote. But does it matter if the resurrection didn't happen? I don't think it matters at all. What matters is whether your belief helps you to, as it were, take hold of the garment; to be transformed."
And yet, despite all this latitude of thought, it was to the ancient creeds and prayers of historic Christianity that he turned in his darkest hour. Informed by his captors that he was about to die, led like the Apostle Peter to a place where he did not want to go, he returned in silence to the familiar forms.
"Yes, the handrails are very important at certain points. I felt that resorting to extemporary prayer would make me a miserable specimen of humanity. I didn't want to be pleading 'Oh Daddy, Daddy, get me out of here,' as if God were planning every step. If there's one thing I do believe, it's that we're co-creators with God."
For Waite, co-creation has taken many forms since his release: writing, lecturing, charitable concern. He is President od Emmaus UK, an innovative project for the homeless, while prison reform is also much on his mind. He was personally acquainted with Myra Hindley, the icon of evil for a generation, and has little doubt that genuinely repented of her crimes.
"People think that criminals deserve all they get, but we don't go deeply enough into why someone has broken the law. True, it would mean financing restorative, as well as punitive, measures. But the system is already costing us £35,000 per prisoner per year." Echoes of Tony Blair and New Labour. "That's right! 'Tough on crime, tough o the causes of crime.' But we weren't tough on causes. It was a good slogan, but we didn't follow through."
For one who has triumphed sp sublimely over evil, he is far more pessimistic than I had expected. He worries about lawlessness, the gap between rich and poor, the sacrifice of green space upon the altar of unaffordable housing. He even describes his outlook as "apocalyptic".
"We're on the road to self-destruction," he asserts. "We think that science is the great saviour and that the economy can grow forever. But that's false! We need thinkers - philosophers, religious leaders, artists - who can reflect on how to make life more bearable. That's a key role of religion: to be prophetic about life. It's not enough to say: 'Come to Jesus!' Sorry, but that's too superficial."
The Apostle Paul had one answer to all this gloom: resurrection. 'If only for this life we have hope,' he wrote to the Corinthians 'we are of all people most to be pitied.' But Waite? When faced with his mock execution, escorted like Shakespeare's Gloucester to the edge of a phantom cliff, what did he see as he stared into the great beyond? What does he expect of eternity?
"Oh, I've no idea," he says cheerfully. "I live in the 'now'. It's this side of the grave that preoccupies me."
We part warmly, Terry to return to his cottage, I to climb the highest hill in Suffolk. It proves easy enough: no crampons required. By the time I have retraced my steps, the afternoon has turned dusky, breathlessly beautiful in its minor key. The Waite house is in darkness. Yet somehow I sense that he is there, happily ensconced in voluntary confinement, silently crafting solutions for a troubled world.
