Claudia Carroll

NOVELIST Claudia Carroll’s novel Meet Me in Manhattan is out now. She says: ‘I BRING my mum Anne and dad Claude away every Christmas to Cancun, Mexico — it’ s my present to them. We go back to the same resort every year, the Moon Palace. I’d be fussy but the staff are amazing. They treat my parents as if they were their own parents. I think if you don’t have kids it’s nice to go away for Christmas.

My biggest problem is getting my mother on and off the plane because she has a nearly pathological fear of flying. I don’t know where it comes from but she could nearly cause a panic on a flight, she’s that bad. Two weeks before she has to travel she gets in a really narky humour. My dad is a doctor and discovered a great sedative for when she starts getting anxious. The sedative does the trick on the plane, and she has a little doze. One year when we were coming home she had her little tablet and was zoned out of it. It was 11am and on top of her tablet she ordered a glass of wine which is really unlike her. At that point she was in la-la land.

The pilot, who was a Southerner, said: “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re flying over Tallahassee, Florida…” Suddenly from two rows behind me, singing at the top of her voice, was my mother: “The day that Billy Joe MCallister jumped off the Tallahassee Bridge!”

I blushed scarlet and pretended not to know her.’