'In the Spotlight' interview with BGTW member Christine Osborne.

What's your earliest memory of travel?
Age 12, flying from Sydney to Grafton (northern NSW) for a fishing holiday with my father.

What's your most bizarre memory of travel?
Being loaned a flat in Fez when the owner forgot to tell his mate and his mistress who came in late in the dark and got into bed with me.

Which is the place you haven't been to yet but would
most like to visit?
Mukalla in south Yemen. I would also like to go tiger fishing in western Zambia and to dance the tango in the milongas of Buenos Aires

Where would you never want to go again?
South Korea

If you could take a day trip back in time to any point in history, when and where would you visit?
Cairo during `La belle Epoque`

What's the best travel advice you've ever been given?
No one has given me any but I would say `always have a contingency plan'.

How did you get involved in travel writing/photography/broadcasting?
I received the 1970 -1971 PATA awards for articles on S.E.Asia on my very first travel writing commission. The second was for a single story on Burma which the National Geographic had turned down. They came second..

How did you get involved in travel writing?
I wrote my first article on the gypsy festival in the Camargue which my father sent to the Sydney Morning Herald. My second was on Djibouti. My first book was on the Arab States of the Gulf in 1978.

Favourite museum or gallery?
The British Museum, especially the Middle East department.

Most memorable hotel?
The Bella Vista in Macau and for utterly different reasons, the Bora Bora Lagoon.

When and why did you join the Guild?
1974, newly arrived in London.

How has the Guild been most helpful?
Several members have put me up for writing jobs for which I am exceedingly grateful..

Everyone gets it wrong sometimes, so what's the biggest travel blunder you've ever made?
Missing photographs of H.M. and the Duke of E. with the Saudi royals when I tripped over during a photo call at the State banquet in Riyadh when covering the British royal tour of Arabia.

Who, outside of your own family, would you most like
to go travelling with and why?
I travel alone.

What was your worst travel experience?
Emergency landing in Singapore with our engines on fire when we slid down the escape chutes and ran for our lives.

And your favourite travel experience?
57 days at sea on the Messageries Martitimes MV Caledonien from Sydney to Marseille via Noumea, Tahiti, Martinique, Panama and Madeira. Only 300 passengers including the Foreign Legion, and a cargo of coconuts. Sadly the company has disbanded.

What is your favourite international cuisine?
Indonesian, Indian and Thai.

Which travel destination has taken you most by
surprise and why?
Probably Sana`a in Yemen, 20 years ago.

If you had one tip to share with other travel writers what would it be?
Take your own pillow and a mini-bottle of Scotch.

Three Desert Island discs for your Ipod?
I was on Desert Island discs in Doha when my choice of music was so banal I do not wish to be reminded of it.

And a favourite book to pass the journey?
Any well written biography of someone of note.
Currently ` Rimbaud` by Graham Webb.