Wiped out – by a bowl of Brazilian shellfish

CONTINUING our series featuring holiday memories of famous people, this week singer RICK

ASTLEY, 52, recalls his lifetime of adventures...

My first holiday:

Going to Cornwall when I was three. My parents took us to a fishing village called Polperro on the coast. It had a lovely harbour and a beach where we spent hours building sandcastles and swimming in the crystal-clear sea.

The holiday really sticks in my mind because my mum and dad divorced soon after and it was the last family holiday we went on.

First school trip:

I remember going to the Isle of Man when I was at Selwyn Jones High School in Newton-le-Willows in Lancashire. I must have been ten. It wasn’t exciting for me because I’d already been five times before to visit family. I remember playing crazy golf and we went to Laxey Wheel, the world’s largest working waterwheel.

First time abroad:

I was 13 and I went on a ski trip to Italy with school. We stayed in a small resort in the Dolomites. I learned to ski there. I wouldn’t say I was good but I didn’t break anything. I didn’t go skiing again until I was 20 and from then on I have skied all over the world.

My honeymoon:

I didn’t really have one as I got married [to Danish wife Lene] on a whim in 2013. We had been engaged for 15 years but decided to tie the knot and, two weeks later, married at the register office in Richmond, South-West London, and spent the night at the nearby Bingham hotel.

Best holiday:

When my daughter Emilie (who is now 26 and works as an artist and landscape designer) was growing up, we used to hire a villa with another family in Sardinia. It was in a village called Villasimius on the south-east of the island and there was nothing fancy about it.

The kids would play on the beach, have an ice cream at the end of the day and a bowl of pasta in the evening.

Living in London, children can have a distorted view of what life can be like, and I’ve never been one for spoiling them.

And the worst:

I had a shocking stomach bug when I went to Sao Paulo in Brazil on tour six years ago. I decided to take a few days holiday and I went to this restaurant that served the most amazing seafood, but I got unlucky and came down with a bout of food poisoning from the shellfish. I was so ill that I didn’t get out of bed for two days. HITS THE RIGHT NOTE: Paraggi on the Italian Riviera. Below: Rick in 1988; and, left, as a youngster with his older brothers in the 1960s

My essential item:

Audio books. I recently drove from London to Copenhagen and back – about 1,500 miles – and I listened to Sapiens: A Brief History Of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari, which I found fascinating.

My dream destination is:

Paraggi next to Portofino on the Italian Riviera near Genoa. Lene and I have been there several times and it’s somewhere I want to visit on our delayed honeymoon next year. It’s a tiny bay, which has a really nice hotel and a couple of beach club restaurants. It’s laidback and is a little haven away from the madness of Portofino. There aren’t any super yachts, only small boats. I love to sit and have a Campari and soda while watching the world go by.