LOCHGOILHEAD, Scotland - BBC reporter Alan Johnston was reunited with his family Saturday after four months as a hostage in the Gaza Strip and said one of the hardest parts about his ordeal was imagining his parents' anguish.
"I felt that I had brought the very worst of the world's troubles into their normally peaceful lives," Johnston, still looking gaunt, told reporters outside his parents' home in Scotland.
But "one of the better moments" was when one of his captors allowed him to watch television and he saw his father, Graham, speaking at a news conference.
"It was just dad at his best, in the depth of a crisis, calm and dignified and so strong. I was so relieved, he said. "And I felt a bit, looking into mum's eyes, that she was coping with it too somehow."
Johnston, 45, was seized in March by a small armed group, the Army of Islam, and freed Wednesday. He had covered Gaza for the British Broadcasting Corp. for three years, the only foreign reporter to live in the coastal strip.
"Coming home has just never, never felt so very good," said Johnston. "This strange dark period is coming to an end."
Johnston, who was held in captivity far longer than any other foreigner kidnapped in Gaza, said he intends to take a few months rest. But he made clear that he was also looking forward to getting back to work.
"I've been in journalism for the better part of 20 years and it is the strangest, strangest thing to be the focus of the story," he added. "It will be very good to be back in there with you lads on the other side of the microphone quite soon."
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