Interviews

Me & My Suitcase - Belfast Telegraph interview

First holiday memory?

Bundoran in Donegal. It’s only down the road from Omagh, where I grew up, and we seemed to spend half the summer there every year. It’s where I first had my heart broken. His name was Johnny and he was 17, he collected the admission at the open air swimming pool. I was five, and thought he meant it when he called me his girlfriend. I felt as betrayed as a wife of 20 years’ standing where I spotted him holding hands with a girl in a bikini...

Best holiday? Why?

Kenya, when I stayed in a mud hut with my sister who was working there for VSO, and we went on safari. I was unprepared for the phenomenon of seeing animals such as lions and giraffes in their natural habitat. And I defy anyone to watch a zebra running sideways without laughing aloud. It’s perfectly wonderful.

Favourite place in Northern Ireland?

The Giant’s Causeway, because it’s where my father first told me the legend of Fionn McCool. I was always straining my eyes trying to see across to Scotland and I never could. I used to have a little model of the causeway on my dressing table for years. I lost it during a house move and my dressing table has had a strangely naked feel to it ever since.

Ideal travelling companion?

My boyfriend David, because he’s so organised that I don’t have to be. Plus he always carries my bags without complaining about the junk I’ve bought at the souk/market/bazaar.

Are you a beach bum, culture vulture or adrenalin junkie when on holiday?

Culture bum, you should see the way I’m dressed sometimes. No T-shirt too washed-out is my holiday motto.

Ideal holiday reading?

Star of the Sea by Joseph O’Connor, it’s a magnificent book with the added bonus of a twist in the tail. It’s nice and plump too, so it should see you through flight delays and lost hotel reservations. Also, I love Alexander McCall’s Smith heroine in the No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series. She’s called Precious, a name you couldn’t make up, she had her heart broken by a jazz musician, so she has street cred, and her buxom ‘traditional build’ leads her to harbour suspicions of women who are too thin. A woman who’ll starve herself to attract a man will stop at nothing, she deduces. What a detective!

Worst holiday? Why?

Budapest, when I had a rush of blood to the head and accepted an offer of marriage. Never going there again. Those twinkling city lights are lethal.

I never leave home without? (Name three items)

The Satanic Verses, because I’m still attempting to finish the book after three years and keep convincing myself this is the holiday when I’ll finally crack it. Sun tan lotion because I’m a freckly redhead who doesn’t want to get any frecklier. A spare (empty) bag for the holiday souvenirs I can’t leave behind – until I get home, see how tacky they are and fob them off on friends and family.

Are you afraid of flying?

No, I love a long haul trip because it’s one of my few opportunities to catch up on the latest films. I fitted three and a half films into a flight to Beijing – I was only sorry I hadn’t booked a ticket to Bangkok and then I’d have ticked off four films. I never did find out what happened to Russell Crowe in Master and Commander.

Best meal abroad?

Moros y Cristianos, literally Moors and Christians, which is rice with kidney beans. I lived on it in Cuba, it was my favourite meal because it was my only meal – all I could find to eat there as a veggie. It kept me going for a fortnight. Strangely enough, I haven’t been able to face it since coming back and that was two years ago.

Dream trip?

I’d like to visit the Taj Mahal in India. I know it’s corny but I can’t help it, I yearn to fly halfway around the world to see a monument to love.

Favourite city?

Shanghai, because it’s a heady mix of old world colonialism, communist China and space age capitalism - complete with towering skyscrapers and rocket trains. I stayed in the Peace Hotel overlooking the Yangzi River (where Noel Coward wrote Private Lives), sipping a cocktail and listening to an excruciating jazz band, while a hawker claiming to be my best ‘fiend’ tried to sell me a jade bangle. This is the life, I thought. And it was.

Tackiest holiday souvenir you have ever bought/received?

So much tat, so little space… The crocodile letter-opener from the Gambia which lost its teeth on the plane home (a toothless crocodile; I ask you), the coconut shells painted with pneumatic samba dancers from Cuba, the barometer from Austria with a herr in lederhosen and a fraulein in plaits. Oh yes, they’ve all been palmed off on other people. But the one I did keep was an Elvis mug from Graceland. His face appears on the side when it’s filled with hot liquid and what can I say? It still gets me all shook up.

Where are you going on holidays next?

The plan at the moment is Hong Kong because they’ll accept Chinese currency there and I have €30 in yuan left over from last year’s trip to Beijing and Shanghai. It’s an excuse. I never said it was a good one.