THE mother of a Grassington paratrooper has told of her days of anguish whilst she waited to discover if her son had survived the Sierra Leone hostage rescue mission.

Marilyn Brown, of Bridge End, said that she had to wait a week before finding out if her son Jonathan was safe.

The Paratroopers had to clear the way for the SAS to rush in and rescue the hostages.

They were deployed to Sierra Leone in the early hours of Sunday September 10 and carried out the daring and dramatic operation to rescue the seven hostages, held in captivity by the West Side Boys militia.

Mrs Brown said: "I didn't know anything about it until I saw it on the television.

"Jonathan had told me about a week before that he might be going but he wasn't sure. Once he knew though it was all hush-hush and he couldn't tell me anything and I didn't know he had even gone.

"They all had their mobile phones taken off them so they couldn't talk to anyone."

Mrs Brown added: "He couldn't contact me for over a week. I didn't know if Jonathan was safe or not until the Tuesday morning when he phoned to say he was back in the country and was okay.

"Before that we heard on the local news that one local lad from the British forces had died and there were 12 walking wounded.

"We didn't know if Jonathan was one of them, but then we found out the lad killed was from Harrogate. You're obviously relieved it was not your lad but feel guilty because it was someone else's."

Mrs Brown moved to Grassington last November from Bradford with her husband, Colin, who is a paramedic in the village.

Jonathan, 19, joined the Paratroopers 16 months ago, after training at Catterick Garrison. He returned to his base at Dover this week.

His mum added: "We're just so proud of him as he's done so well in everything. He was going to be a joiner and had become an apprentice, but he did not like it and wanted to do something more with his life."

Coincidentally, Jonathan's sister Katie also flies for a living, and works as a member of the cabin crew for Virgin Atlantic.