Remember to Smile

Description

Looking for Kate

About this Book:

Where was Kate? Coming from a long line of adventurers Liz and Patrick’s middle daughter Kate was far from conventional. Wilfully independent, she had travelled the world before finally settling in Bali, calling her family in England every week regaling them with letters and photographs of her continuing adventures. But now she’d gone quiet.
For three weeks there were no calls, letters or emails. It was as if Kate had vanished from the face of the earth.
Local police had found no trace of Kate and, dissatisfied with the investigation, her parents, supported by two British police detectives, went to Indonesia to search for answers…
Told by Kate’s mother, this is a story of love, hope and tragedy, as two desperate parents enter an alien world of extreme backpackers, ex-pats, corrupt officials and violent criminals in a real life version of ‘The Beach’. Only one thing was certain. Their lives would never be the same again.
A prolific photographer and talented writer, Kate’s letters also form a major part of this book. Endearingly written, they are vivid, funny and full of personality – vibrant vignettes of how she feels, what she sees, and what she believes. There is a sense of a beautiful, questing spirit, always seeking, but never quite finding her place in the world – quick to laugh, always there for others, always remembering to smile.

Reviews:

Is it time to let go?: mother tells story of daughter who never came home

In Bali, on the night of 18 April 2003, Kate Osborne disappeared. Her family in the UK didn’t know for three weeks – they had been trying to call her in that time with growing panic. It was unusual, but Kate, who had been living on the Indonesian island for two years was nearly 35, and had been complaining about her unreliable phone. After three weeks of no contact, they went to the Foreign Office.
Her mother Elizabeth tries to find the words to describe how they felt in those first few weeks and months after they discovered Kate had disappeared. She can’t. “I can tell you that you feel sick with dread, apprehension,” she says slowly. “Physically sick.” There were glints of futile hope that somehow their adventurous, travelling daughter would walk through the gate of their farmhouse or phone to say she was in another country. Elizabeth kept calling Kate’s phone. “Someone must have been charging it because it [rang] for quite a long time.”
It was on the plane to Bali, nearly two months after Kate’s disappearance that Elizabeth just felt she knew that her daughter was dead – so did Kate’s father, Patrick. Elizabeth writes in her book, Remember to Smile: “We both felt it. The main thing was to find her body, find out what happened and bring her home.”
Fifteen years on, that hasn’t happened. The family has also had to live through what she describes as a deeply unsatisfactory investigation by Indonesian police, tabloid press reports that Kate was mixed up in some kind of drugs underworld, a private investigation that failed to uncover much new information and numerous false leads and sightings. Life carries on, as it does, in no small part, I suspect, to Elizabeth, whose warmth belies a steely side. They live in an idyllic spot in Cumbria, with fading daffodils lining the drive and dogs in the yard.