Lying on his sunlounger in Sousse, staring out over the turquoise waters of the Gulf of Hammamet and with The Stranglers playing through his earphones, Colin Bidwell thought life was good.

Over the music, Bidwell heard a couple of pops. At first, the then 49-year-old assumed a firework had been set off in celebration on the beach outside the Imperial Marhaba hotel.

But when he turned to his wife and saw her urgently mouthing to run, he knew his Tunisian paradise had been lost.

It was the ninth day of a 10-day holiday. Little did Bidwell know that the immediate fight for survival would lead to a longer battle against the demons of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that were to return with him to his home in the peaceful village of Windlesham, Surrey.

Bidwell in his workshop. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian

“I didn’t know what to do in those first few milliseconds,” the painter and decorator told the Guardian as he sat in his workshop nearly two years later.

Bullets had whizzed passed him and hit the sand. He rolled from the sunlounger and crashed to the floor. He could see feet running away in all directions.

“There was a speedboat on the sand. I went round the boat, hit the deck. There was pounding in my ears, I could hear my heart drumming in my head. I was desperate. I didn’t know what to do.”



Bidwell could not see who was firing the weapon. He did not know how many attackers were on the beach – he assumed there was more than one.

As he placed his head down on the sand and prayed, he decided to take his chances in the open water. “I ran out to the sea, dived in, swam out under water as quick as I could. After a while I was tired, I popped my head up out of the water. I could see a massacre – there was no doubt about it.”

Treading water 50 metres from land, he noticed that the back of his arm felt peculiar. Bullets had grazed his shoulder and leg. But the distance from the shoreline was making him panic, and he soon forgot the discomfort.

A speedboat driver from the neighbouring hotel’s watersports team saw him and pulled him from the water. “He pulled me in. ‘Don’t worry my friend, I’ll take you somewhere safe,’ he said.”

A broken glass window of the Imperial Marhaba hotel. Photograph: Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP/Getty Images

After what seemed like a long journey that had lasted only minutes, Bidwell was dropped off on the beach outside the neighbouring Bellevue hotel.

As he staggered up the sand, he thought of his wife. He raced through the Bellevue and towards the road that runs along the front of both hotels.

Once there, Bidwell tried to climb over a wall when he saw the barrel of an AK47 emerge around the corner. He now knows this was Seifeddine Rezgui, the 23-year-old attacker. Scared of being spotted by the killer, Bidwell lowered himself down again before seeing someone throw tiles at the attacker from a nearby roof. “I now know that guy saved my life because while he was doing that the guy with the gun was looking up.”

Returning to Sousse a year later, his saviour, Moncef Mayel, gave him one of those tiles as a gift.

After hearing what Bidwell describes as the “biggest firefight I’ve heard in my life” – which in fact was the Tunisian security forces killing Rezgui – he made his way back to the Imperial Marhaba to find his wife.

When he arrived, many of the 38 people killed had been covered by beach towels.

“It didn’t take long for me to realise they weren’t my wife,” Bidwell said. “I got on to my hands and knees and wept, and said, ‘Please God let my wife be alive.’ As I looked through the Imperial glass doors, I could see my wife’s bright yellow bikini.”

The relief that they were both alive washed over him and Bidwell lit the first cigarette he had smoked in seven years.

But after a long journey home, Bidwell and his wife were faced with the ongoing impact of the horrors they witnessed, both receiving treatment for PTSD.

The condition most commonly manifests in feelings of hyperawareness and anxiety, Bidwell explained, although he once woke with the taste of saltwater in his mouth.



Seifeddine Rezgui. Photograph: HO/EPA

He describes a meeting he recently attended as an example of what is now a typical experience for him.

“I arrived early so I could check out the fire exits,” he said. “I went outside for a cigarette and everyone who had a backpack on I thought was going to blow me up. When I did get to where I was going, I had to make sure I was near an exit to get out.”

Bidwell said he still struggles whenever he is in London, especially on the underground. He and his wife do not go out as much as they once did.

The events ultimately led him to interfaith work, in which he tries to build bridges between communities and religions. He has also set up an organisation called Overseas Victims of Terrorism (OVOT), which helps people affected by such attacks.



Bidwell remains optimistic. Now, nearly two years after the atrocity on 26 June 2015, he said: “I’m determined to live every day to its full potential. I want to enjoy every moment of my life.”

He still smokes. But what happened on the beach in Sousse has put the dangers of smoking in perspective. As he rolled a cigarette outside his workshop, he shrugged his shoulders, and wondered: “Maybe it was just an excuse for me to start smoking again?”

