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Yvonne's friends tell of strong character

As the world saw journalist Yvonne Ridley emerge from a car at the border with Pakistan after ten days in captivity, her friends from the regional press around Britain also watched the story unfold.

The 43-year-old mum was seized by the Taliban authorities after she entered eastern Afghanistan from Pakistan without a visa.

Rumours quickly spread that she was to be put on trial for illegal entry or even for spying.

  • Due home today
  • She told the Daily Express after her release by the Taliban: “The only way I could exercise any right – because as a prisoner I had no rights – was by not eating and that really upset them, which encouraged me.”

    And she told reporters that one of her lowest moments was missing her daughter Daisy’s ninth birthday.

    She started her career at the Stanley News – a weekly paper in County Durham, and had two stints on the Northern Echo and Sunday Sun, as well as working on the Newcastle Journal and Wales on Sunday.

    Her career on the nationals has taken in the Sunday Express, Independent on Sunday, The Observer and News of the World.

    Neil McKay, of the The Journal, worked with Yvonne on the Sunday Sun for five years in the 1980s.

    They are still in touch, speaking quite regularly on the phone.

    Neil said: “I think she will have coped pretty well. Look at the way her mum has coped with all the media attention – she’s 74 – she has coped amazingly well, and Yvonne is a chip off the old block.

    “Once, when we were both working on the Sunday Sun, she had gone out to lunch and came back looking a bit dishevelled.

    “She had seen a man beating up his wife in the shopping centre and had split them up and sent him away with a flea in his ear. She has a sense of courage and a sense of right and wrong.”

    Helen Carter, formerly of the Lincolnshire Echo and now with The Guardian, worked with Yvonne when they were at the News of the World together.

    Helen said: “She’s very resilient and has a strong sense of self-preservation. It doesn’t surprise me at all that she went on hunger strike.

    “The pressure to do what she did was tremendous. As soon as it was reported that John Simpson had got in, all their mobiles went off with the editors asking why they weren’t there too.

    “Yvonne has worked in Northern Ireland and the Middle East so she knows what she’s doing and how to handle herself.

    “She looked absolutely haunted on her release – but she would if she’s been on hunger strike, and when she said she was ‘fine’ she looked absolutely drained.

    “Just because she’s a single parent she has been accused of being reckless. But her daughter knows how important her job is to her – she’s cool about it.

    “And although her family live in the north east she’s very close to them.

    “Most of all she’s a brilliant friend, very loyal and doesn’t ask for anything in return for that friendship.”

    Yvonne was expected to fly back to Britain today for a homecoming party with her family.

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