NOTE: you must read part 1 first or you won't get it!
After we loaded the van, we went to find a restaurant to eat. And the mother grabbed her sleeping bag and coat to return to the village. This was about 9pm, when the sun was fast setting and the hills and trees were already dark shadows together.
We had dinner, and took director and assistant to vehicle number two. Me and the other girl went to our hotel and then to rest. At midnight she knocked at my door.
Her: 'Sorry, can I borrow your torch?'
me(sleepy and confused): 'Yeah, why?'
her:'um, because I have to go back to the village in the dark, the mother has disappeared.'
me: 'What!? I'm coming with you.'
20 minutes later we arrived to the parked car at the top of the hill, where the mother's car was together with a police jeep. Cold, very windy, and chillingly quiet was the atmosphere of these empty hills that we had to cross to get back. The wind was loud so it was hard to hear people shouting across the fields to each other. We walked up through the steep hills and saw two fierce lights moving around in the dark. Obviously it was the police, and it helped us find the village because otherwise in utter darkness it was tough to see. When we got there the police told us to remain in the village, the search dogs would find it harder to hunt because people cross the same track were leaving too many scents. The tudors were all a flutter, and the leader was talking to the police or on his mobile constantly. The director was by the girl's bed praying she would continue sleeping in blissful ignorance. The last people to see the mother was us. She never arrived at the village. Nearly four hours had passed without a sign. Her mobile phone was in her handbag, with a dead battery.
The police dogs arrived, and could find nothing. The helicopter flew around and shined a huge light across the fields. It's thermal sight could only see cows and sheep, it was too hard to spot anything human with all the animals giving of similar heat patterns. After 20 minutes the helicopter left. It was like a movie, only very very serious. Five hours had passed since she was last seen. The police established the girl's next of kin, and so the assistant and I set off in the hire car to pick him up in Bristol. The director had a very heavy conscience, and I really felt for her. We all felt guilty. Where on earth was she? We all feared the worst; that she was dead somewhere.
The two hour journey took us four hours because access to the Severn bridge was closed due to high winds. Finally we parked the car up to find the search rescue team getting ready to set their dogs off and hunt for the mother. The relative was in shock, but gave the team a photo of the mother and described her. I was exhausted. By 6am my brain had ceased to function and the director suggested I sleep in her tent. At 8am she woke me up to tell me the mother had walked back in to the village covered in her marathon insulation blanket. She had got lost, and gave up looking for the village. So she wrapped herself in her insulation blanket (how lucky was she to have one! She could have froze) and fell asleep under a tree. When she saw the helicopter she said she ran across the field waving her blanket but they never saw her.
We tried our best not to let the daughter know what had happened, but seeing the next of kin there with them must have begged questions. Finally we told her, although without making it dramatic. She assumed her mother had vanished for only an hour. She said 'So you really DID have a search party looking for you!?' What she didn't know was that for eight frightening hours we thought her mother was dead.
.bmp)
