Girl ‘trapped’ on a boat for 10 years details astonishing ‘escape’

Suzanne Heywood was just 7 when her parents took her on a 3-year voyage – but the trip of a lifetime turned into what she describes as “prison”.

A woman who spent the best part of her childhood “trapped” on a boat when her parents set out to sail the world has detailed the extraordinary way she “escaped”.

Suzanne Heywood was just 7 when her parents took off from England on what they said would be a three-year voyage with her and younger brother Jonathan in tow.

However, their quest to recreate Captain Cook’s infamous third and final voyage around the globe ended up spanning the best part of a decade, and saw the family face extreme dangers – including sailing through wild storms and experiencing total isolation.

While her parents thought it was the trip of a lifetime, often describing the opportunity as a “privilege”, Suzanne has since compared it to being locked up in prison.

Now 55, her tale of survival has gone viral on TikTok after she penned her memoir Wavewalker, named after the boat she unwillingly spent her childhood on.

Suzanne Heywood was just 7 when her parents set off with her and her brother to sail the world. Picture: Supplied

“My father said we would be back in three years’ time, and that my dog would be waiting for me, and my friends and school and everything would go back to normal,” the author said in a video.

“But in fact, it was almost 10 years before we came back, and I spent that time trapped on a boat, unable to go to school or have normal friendships.”

Despite her father assuring her the “trip would be safe”, Suzanne claimed it was “incredibly dangerous”, sharing details of a perilous journey from South Africa to Australia where the boat hit an “enormous storm”.

“The waves became bigger and bigger, and finally one crashed over the back of the boat, through the deck and out the side,” she recalled.

“I was thrown, a little girl at 7, against the ceiling of the cabin and against the wall, fracturing my skull and breaking my nose.

“Three days later, we found a tiny little island in the middle of the Indian Ocean where I had multiple head operations without anaesthetic.”

But the family spent the best part of a decade at sea, something Suzanne described as ‘strange’ and ‘isolating’. Picture: Suzanne Heywood

Living at sea for many years was “very strange”, Suzzane told The Morning Show in Canada in December, adding that for her, it made “childhood quite difficult”.

In order to cope, she became determined to gain an education, despite the fact she couldn’t attend any school.

“As it became clear my parents had no intentions of going back, I decided I had to educate myself as it was the only lifeline that I had,” she told the hosts.

“The only way to get off this boat was to get an education, it was my only hope to ensure I had a ‘normal life’ for myself one day.”

However, learning remotely wasn’t an option – after all, there was no Wi-Fi back in 1969. Instead Suzanne enrolled in an Australian correspondence school.

She was 13-years-old when she began studying in the small cabin of the boat, which she found challenging both practically, and academically as she “had missed a lot of education”.

She released a memoir about her experience that was released at the end of 2023. Picture: Instagram/SuzanneHeywood

But a recent TikTok about her journey has gone viral. Picture: SuzanneHeywood

Then, when she was 16, and her brother 15, her parents enrolled the two teenagers into a school in New Zealand while they continued sailing.

“For nine months, we lived alone in a small hut beside a lake in a country in which I only knew one adult (who lived several hours away),” she explained in a piece penned for HuffPost.

“I kept working through my correspondence lessons, posting them off each week. I also wrote to every university I’d ever heard of, asking them if they would let me apply to be a student.”

Eventually she landed a spot at Oxford University, and after saving up money she’d earned picking kiwis, Suzanne bought a one-way plane ticket back to the UK.

While her life has been seemingly normal since then, she married former Downing Street Chief of Staff Jeremy Heywood, forged a career within the UK government, and had three children; Suzanne said it took her decades to “confront her past”.

She became her own teacher on board the small boat, believing an education was her only way to ‘escape’. Picture: Suzanne Heywood

It was only after losing her husband to lung cancer in 2018 that Suzanne began therapy, which she said very quickly identified how the “instability” of her childhood was still affecting her as an adult.

“I found it incredibly useful and I am much more at ease with my past and what happened,” she said in a YouTube video last year.

Shortly after she wrote her book, which instantly became a bestseller at the end of 2023, and was named Times Best Memoir of the year too.

Its recent resurgence on TikTok has been met with similar praise, with many describing it as an “astonishing story”.

“Wavewalker is one of the best books I’ve read, I’m so sorry you went through all that,” one person replied.

“Thank you for the this! Your story inspires me and I can change my life no matter when and how,” another shared.

As someone else mused: “Wow what a strong spirit you had and have.”

Originally published as Girl ‘trapped’ on a boat for 10 years details astonishing ‘escape’