What’s your earliest memory of travel?
My earliest travel memory is of family holidays to the Devon seaside immediately after World War II. The beaches had been out of bounds "for the duration" and I was 10 years old before I saw the sea! Lots of barbed wire and anti-invasion defences were still all over the place, but my first view of Babbacombe Bay was breathtaking. I shall never forget it, nor the all-pervading smell of frying bacon as breakfasts were being prepared in all the guest houses my father and I passed on our early morning walk.

How did you get involved with travel professionally?
My first professional trip abroad was to Brussels in 1960 – to write about the European Coal and Steel Community and "Euratom" – the forerunners of the Common Market/European Community of today. In 1961 Philip Clarke, Travel Editor of Thomson Regional Newspapers, left to edit "Go" magazine. I asked to be considered as his replacement and a week after my one-sentence memo went in, the Chief London Editor, passing me in a corridor, remarked: "As nobody else has applied for Clarke's job, you may as well have it."

When did you join the Guild and what’s the best thing about it?
I joined the Guild in 1961 or 1962. What I like about it is that it represents continuity in an ever-changing world. I like the company of the younger members, eager to establish themselves at the start of their careers, because I see in them a reflection of my younger self. And, of course, the coterie of "old hands" who can survey the current scene and say silly things to each other like "what's the world coming to?" or "it wasn't like that in my day" or "I think we had the best of it", as we clutch our wine glasses and circulate at Guild functions. The networking is all important!

Best/Funniest experience?
My best travel experience was probably my first sight of the Grand Canyon. The one place on earth for which no description, photograph or travel programme can prepare you. Or, possibly, of flying to Tokyo in order to deliver a speech to the body that was to become the World Travel Organisation, and learning as I walked on the stage that Lord Thomson - my boss - was in the audience.
Funniest? A trip to Iceland in, I think, 1971 or 1972. My first location job for the Holiday programme, after being in the studio for the previous series. We accompanied a bunch of truly weird Americans on a "Safari" into the heart of the country, sleeping in small tents and eating al fresco. The wind was so strong it blew the cornflakes clear out of the bowl unless you got the milk in fast. The whole story, including the "romance" between our assistant cameraman and an Icelandic girl nicknamed "Og the Wench", and the hazardous way we were brought out in an overloaded light aircraft, has stood me in good stead after many a dinner...

What’s your worst / most bizarre?
I can't think of a worst experience. Taking six hours (with two refuelling stops) to fly from London to Palma in a Dan Air Elizabethan wasn't fun. Neither was the Hotel HB in the Westmann Islands, where the Features Editor of the Daily Telegraph and I were mistaken for the English team in an international fishing competition, and forced to spend hours in a tiny boat being very sick. The most bizarre? Possibly an evening in Corfu when a bunch of travel hacks and a delegation of top guns from ABTA found themselves at College. "My love has eyes for another, but I shall not despair for I smell octopus and rice" was one of her best offerings. Again, more after-dinner material...

What’s the best thing about being professionally involved in travel?
The best thing about being involved professionally in the business of travelling is when you are invited to turn left on entering an aircraft.

What is the place you haven’t been to yet which you would most like to visit?
Where have I never been? There are bits of South America, a couple of Far Eastern countries and the North Island of New Zealand. And Moscow.

Who or what would you like to be in the next life?
As far as the next life is concerned. I'll happily do what I did in this life, if it's all the same to you.

Future plans and ambitions?
Masses. I'm fiddling with some fiction - nothing to do with travel, but aimed at children - and would like to complete it. I would like to do more research into the history of holidays, another subject about which I have been known to hold forth. I am happy to continue travelling and writing about it. One other desire - which I fear will never be fulfilled - is that commissioning travel editors will at least have the courtesy to respond to letters and e-mails. A simple yes or no is all I need. With two notable exceptions, they give me the impression they are far too busy, and far too important, to bother.

John Carter This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

December 2006