ANTICIPATION IS PART OF THE THRILL
The stage star recalls schoolboy trips, daring crossings and a tragic plane ride
I travel most when I am on tour with a show in the UK — every Monday morning to a new town/city and home again late Saturday night. Otherwise, I travel twice a year on a holiday break.
The first holiday I remember as a child was when I went to Scotland at the age of nine, on the Flying Scotsman steam train. We slept on the floor at an aunt’s tiny house and visited Edinburgh Castle. After climbing the 263 steps of the Sir Walter Scott Monument, which overlooks Edinburgh, I was presented with a certificate of achievement, which I still have.
My first trip abroad was on an overnight ship to Brittany on a school trip. There were no berths or bunks and we all arrived shattered. We got seaweed soup, fried frogs’ legs and escargots for lunch — not particularly appetising. We trekked up Le Mont-SaintMichel. I came home with 200 duty-free Gitanes cigarettes, which I then sold for a profit to older schoolboys. My most remote destination was in Tahiti. I went there on holiday and we crossed to the island of Mo’orea in a small open boat. My fellow passengers were two goats, half a dozen chickens, two dogs, a few children and a group of local adults … fascinating. Cape Town is my favourite city, surrounded by majestic mountain ranges and the infinite Atlantic. Also it has the Sea Point Olympic swimming pool, which is tops in the world. Its location is unbeatable, framed by the ocean.
Luxury is not my flagon of ale. It’s okay for a short while but my most treasured memory is of an almost-bare room above a typical French café in St Tropez circa 1963.
The smell of good coffee greeted my awakening, brought in by the concierge with croissants, butter and marmalade — that, to me, is luxury. My room had one chair, a double bed and a washstand. The shutters opened on to a narrow cobbled street below.
I was once on a plane that caught fire — on a flight from London to Australia in 1968. The pilot, Captain John Taylor, turned the aircraft around back to London and we had to make an emergency exit. I leapt from the wing and broke my foot. Five people tragically died, including a young air hostess named Jane Harrison, who was posthumously awarded the George Cross for bravery in assisting passengers to escape.
My oddest travel experience was sleeping overnight in a stable on straw alongside a donkey. That was in Morocco, when my hired car broke down between Casablanca and Marrakesh. A villager kindly gave me food and shelter until a replacement car arrived. The donkey didn’t snore!
My best piece of travel
advice is to keep an open mind. Never expect everything to go smoothly — anything can happen at any time. I hate that the glamour days of going to a busy airport are gone. Waiting in the departure lounge is tedious, as are packing and unpacking.
When travelling, I love the anticipation of arrival, meeting new people, local behaviour and observing characteristics, noting the architecture and thinking about the history and of course sampling different foods. Vietnam is on my bucket list. I want to go before we tourists spoil it.
Catch Wynter in Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap at the Pieter Toerien Theatre at Montecasino until March 3.