![]() ![]() The Paynes had children very young, there wasn't much money around, and Michael suffered bouts of manic depression. The opening chapter of the book serves as a 'Before' snapshot of a contented, uncomplicated family just before their world was ripped apart. Then you catch a look on her face - grey, drawn, blurred - and you remember that not only has she lived through something that would finish most of us off, she has lain on the very floor of hell while she was doing it. Sara, 35, is so calm and together when she talks, so matter of fact as she carries Ellie off for a nappy change, it is easy to forget why she is here, and what she is talking about. It put back some timings and memories and also some stuff that I didn't want to remember but needed to.' Was it a painful process? 'The opposite, actually. If you want to know the truth of how I think, there it is.' Does Sara anticipate criticism? 'I suppose some won't like it or won't agree with me writing it. Some may feel disquiet at the thought of a mother writing a book about her child's murder. 'It just seemed like a good way to end this chapter, say how it really was.' She has often been approached to produce a book but she wasn't sure until she became pregnant with Ellie. 'They all have their own perspective and I'm sure their story would be almost a different story.' Settling down to talk to me at her publishers, accompanied by her six-month-old baby, Ellie, and a family friend, Sara is at pains to point out that the book is just from her perspective, and she is not speaking for her husband, Michael, Sarah's older brothers, Lee and Luke, or younger sister, Charlotte. ![]() Now Sara has published Sara Payne: A Mother's Story, her account of the last four years, as told to a journalist who was there from the beginning, when Sarah was taken. I wanted her to know we were in control, we were doing everything possible, and we were missing her.' 'It's just being a mother, isn't it? I totally understand why people lose it, but the only way I could handle it was to imagine that Sarah was watching me. She brushes aside the idea that her self-control was extraordinary. 'I needed her to stay calm and believe we were coming to get her.' 'I always imagined Sarah was watching,' she says, pushing back her long dark hair. I remember thinking, 'That's good, that's clever.' Not raging or lamenting, or calling for the death penalty, but soothing and calming, trying to establish some kind of one-to-one with the abductor, get across the idea that there was still a way out, a chance to step back from the darkness.įor Sara, it was also a means of communicating with her daughter. ![]()
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