Suzanne Heywood was 'trapped' on a boat for 10 years. She finally managed her 'great escape'.

At seven years old, Suzanne Heywood was living the life of a normal schoolgirl. She had friends, she had a family and she was living in England with her younger brother Jonathan. 

Yet, her parents longed for a different life. 

Promising the children a three-year trip, Suzanne and Jonathan were whisked away onto the family's yacht by their Captain Cook-obsessed parents. 

They planned to sail during that time, circumnavigating the world and following Cook's path, per news.com.au.

Their journey would take them from the southern coast of the UK past Tenerife, Cape Town, New Zealand and Hawaii, before ending up in the Bering Strait which separates America and Russia. 

The journey was a dangerous one, fraught with notorious weather and treacherous capes, but the Cook family (that was their last name, coincidentally), continued on the parents' whim. 

What had started out as a three-year journey became a 10-year struggle, during which time both children were forced to live in the isolation of the boat. 

Image: Instagram/suzanneheyward1

Now an adult, Suzanne, 55, has penned a novel about her journey, titled Wavewalker, named after the boat she travelled on. 

"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."

The journey, which she was told would be safe, was anything but. 

In one of the more harrowing moments of her story, Suzanne says that the boat was horrifically rocked during bad weather, which caused her to hit her head. She was severely injured, but she wasn't spirited home to meet with a team of medicine-wielding nurses.

"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," Suzanne explains. 

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

Suzanne underwent a shocking seven surgeries on Île Amsterdam in the southern Indian Ocean, of which is listed to have just 28 people on it, per The Sun. 

Image: Instagram/suzanneheyward1

With her parents deciding not to return to the UK, Suzanne went on to grow up with very little formal education. 

While her brother was 'up top' helping with the boat, she would labour down in the hull to provide for the family. 

"While my brother was allowed to help out on deck, I was expected to cook and clean down below for hours each day," she told HuffPost. 

"We often ran out of fresh food — and sometimes almost ran out of water ― on longer voyages. When that happened, we relied on canned and dried food, and my father allowed us each a cup of water a day for drinking and washing."

With no money or passport, and no way out of the boat life, Suzanne realised that she was going to need to learn something for herself. 

"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, the only way to get off this boat," she said. "It was my only hope to ensure I had a 'normal life' for myself one day."

Image: Instagram/suzanneheyward1

Back then, there was no Wi-Fi and no chance to learn via satellite. So, she enrolled in an Australian correspondence school, where learning happens via mail. 

At just 13 she would hole up in the small internal cabin of their boat to study, which was an uphill battle given how much education she had missed. Unlike other children, there was no promise of friends, or a change of pace on the weekend. It was the same life, day in and day out. 

But she was right, education was indeed the key to her 'escape'. 

When she turned 16, Suzanne's parents dropped her and Jonathan, 15, in New Zealand while they continued on their voyage. And no, it wasn't a luxury private school boarding experience. 

"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 told the 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."

Image: Instagram/suzanneheyward1

While the rejection letters piled up, eventually Suzanne was admitted to the prestigious Somerville College at Oxford University. She would finally be heading back home, over 10 years after she was forced to leave. 

From there, Suzanne had to teach herself how to settle back into land life, to cultivate friendships and to learn in classrooms. 

She would go on to thrive in all these areas, both socially and academically, eventually receiving a PhD from Cambridge. 

She married British civil servant Jeremy Heywood, worked in the UK government and welcomed three children. Her husband was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2017, and retired from the government in 2018. He was created Baron Heywood of Whitehall by then Prime Minister Teresa May, before his death that year, aged 56. 

This meant that Suzanne became Suzanne Elizabeth Heywood, Baroness Heywood of Whitehall. 

Image: Instagram/suzanneheyward1

After his passing, Suzanne embarked on therapy, which she said helped her to confront her past and the instability in her childhood. She said that she's come to realise over time that it's likely her mother suffered from narcissism, which could explain the lacking empathy for her development as a child.

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

Featured Image: Instagram/suzanneheyward1