My best trip? It lasted one night
Continuing our series featuring the holidays of famous people, this week TV presenter
JAN LEEMING, 76, recalls her lifetime of adventures…
First holiday I can remember
I was a wartime baby so everything was scarce or rationed, and family holidays were not on the agenda. My parents separated when I was seven and my sister Gillian was aged one, and they also separated us: my father took me and my mother took my sister.
My first time abroad
My father was in the Army, and serving officers had to deploy abroad for three-year terms.
During that time, the children of Service personnel were allowed one holiday to see their parents. Unfortunately, my break was cancelled because it came at the time of the Suez Crisis.
On his return to the UK, my father made up for the disappointment by sending me on an Erna Low Holiday to Austria with other young people. I remember being enchanted by mountains and cows with bells around their necks.
My honeymoon
Despite my five marriages, I’ve been on only one ‘immediately after the wedding honeymoon’ and that was a very wet week in a B&B in Cornwall. But when I married for a fourth time in 1988, the choice was a couple of weeks in Majorca or a night at the fabulous – and very expensive – Baumaniere Hotel at Les Baux in Provence.
I chose the latter and it was a magical evening, dining under the stars, looking at the floodlit village of Les Baux, and ending with a midnight swim.
My best holiday
Two really stand out. One was a safari to Zambia with the late David Shepherd in 1995. More recently I enjoyed a rather wonderful trip to Burma.
And my worst
I am a sun lover and my then husband and I wanted an inexpensive mid-winter holiday that wouldn’t necessitate a long journey and jetlag, so we went to the Gambia.
The relatively new hotel was dreadful. The food was canteenstyle unless you chose to eat in the ‘air-conditioned’ French restaurant with the same menu every night; the grass around the swimming pool had become a sea of mud; we were plagued by beggars; and I caught some horrible stomach bug. I’d never go back.
Essential holiday item
A small bag with medical essentials, having learned my lesson in the Seychelles: I bent down to stroke a kitten and received a bite from a spider. The hotel had absolutely nothing by way of first-aid kit, and when finally we got to the nearest town the chemist was closed. My arm swelled and I was in agony. Had I had antihistamines, the pain would have lessened. So now I always take various tablets, creams and plasters with me.
Dream destination
Although the Dalai Lama no longer lives there, I would love to visit Tibet. Its beautiful monasteries and its air of mystery appeal to my romantic nature.
Mind you, having suffered from altitude sickness when visiting Machu Picchu, I’d probably succumb again but it would be worth it.
Perfect companion
A loved one or, if he were free, my son Jonathan. I wish he were happily settled with a companion but he is not and we have had some fabulous holidays. reasons. I am of French descent and love Paris for culture and Provence for history. For a beach holiday I would choose the Seychelles – the sea is azure and warm and the beaches are fringed with fabulous volcanic rocks out of which springs amazing vegetation. I recently returned from a Just You singles holiday to Peru, visiting Machu Picchu and meeting a pair of colourful llamas.