Wavewalker: THE INTERNATIONAL BESTELLING TRUE-STORY OF A YOUNG GIRL’S FIGHT FOR FREEDOM AND EDUCATION

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I wanted to look at Jon, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the final slip of paper, which would determine everything. Dad smoothed it out.

Today, we meet in her double-fronted home in Balham, south London, on the eve of the publication of her book Wavewalker: Breaking Free, eight years in the writing and an astonishing almost day-by-day account of that hazardous journey and its legacy. Suzanne Heywood, 54, officially Lady Heywood, is petite (her sex and her stature were held against her on the boat), yet there is a quiet fierceness about her. In 2018 she was widowed, with three teenage children to look after. Her late husband was Lord Jeremy Heywood – the famously intellectually brilliant civil servant, cabinet secretary from 2012 to 2018 – whom she met while working at the Treasury in 1994. He died aged 56, of lung cancer. Four prime ministers spoke at his memorial. This is an autobiography about a girl who grew up on a boat. That description only begins to capture the experience though. Maybe you hear "grew up on a boat" and think that it might have been a bit of a fun adventurous way to grow up like someone who grows up at a tourist resort. Or maybe you hear that and think it's like someone who grew up traveling in a caravan. The story kind-of has those vibes at times - there is a road-trip element to the characters and places in the story as well as descriptions of dramatic experiences, exotic locations and wildlife. But as the story continues, there is a darker undercurrent of parental neglect and poverty that starts to colour it. The fun and excitement of travel is held up against the dangers of life at sea, social isolation and intellectual starvation. Well, someone needs to mark the 200th anniversary of Cook’s third voyage, don’t they?” he said, raising his eyebrows at my mother. When we lived in England my days had a familiar rhythm. Each morning, my mother flung open the curtains in my room, and I tugged my school jumper over my head and pulled on my skirt before tumbling downstairs to eat cereal with my younger brother Jon. After school, we’d play on the swing in our garden, or crouch at the far end of the stream to watch dragonflies hovering above the gold-green surface. The Lady Swathling Award, for an outstanding feat of seamanship and navigation, was presented to Gordon Cook from Gloucestershire in recognition of his outstanding seamanship and navigation when he successfully sailed and navigated a severely damaged 30 ton yacht to safety saving the lives of all six people onboard.Dad returned to Tauranga, and I settled into a routine. Each morning, Jon came into the main bach for breakfast and I asked about his plans for the day, though he rarely said much. After he left to catch the school bus, I tidied up and took my books out to study on the veranda overlooking the lake. Nothing would ever be as terrifying again. In 2021, Heywood threatened to take the Government to court over the handling of a review into the lobbying scandal following the collapse of financier Lex Greensill’s Greensill Capital. ‘My experience on the boat and standing up to my parents in a quiet way, and then keeping it very fact-based, enabled me to stand up for Jeremy.’ Not very well. I’m finding it hard to eat and I have a permanent headache.” I paused, trying to keep control. “As well as looking after my brother, I have to run my dad’s business.” I was never going to get an explanation. She felt no regret, no remorse whatsoever and she was just a very strange person who really, really disliked me. I do think her death makes [the book] easier but I was going to do it anyway.

Well, we can’t stay in Hawaii for ever,” he said. “I think we have two options. We’ve finished our voyage, so we could go home through the Panama Canal.”Thanks, Dad,” I said, and, with three hours to go, I got the passport stamp I needed. I could stay in New Zealand until 10 days after my exams, but would then have to return to England after a decade away to face whatever waited for me there. Eventually the journey stretched to 17 years, with the children getting their education from a correspondence course based in Brisbane. Chris Pearce, Network Rail’s interim Western route director, said: “We are really pleased with the progress we have made in Dawlish. Many will remember the significant damage to the railway in 2014 and the impact it had on Dawlish and the wider south west, and the work we are continuing to do in Dawlish will protect the town and region for at least the next 100 years. After the wind returned, we saw a passenger ship ploughing its way towards us from South America. It came so close that I could see the people crowding its balconies and rails to wave, and when it swept past I saw its name etched on the stern: Brazilla.

The swelling is pressing down on the fracture. If we do nothing, Monsieur Capitaine, your daughter could end up with brain damage. We must cut into the wound.” After 36 hours of continuous pumping in moderating seas the huge leaks were at last brought under control, but then the weather started to deteriorate again with another build up of huge waves.

This personal and powerful book is so great. What a journey - a hardcore one at times. I’m glad the compass has found its way home” - Bear Grylls Suzanne's memoir exposes, scene by scene, the bare reality behind the romantic notion of sailing round the world . . . You can't read her story without a growing sense of fury at her plight ” - a minor, thousands of miles from home, trapped with her parents and totally misunderstood by them . . . beautifully written’ 'Daily Mail