Time Traveller

We're running late, and as we wait outside the formidable iron gates, we're nervous. Our guest today is the novelist, columnist and travel writer Victoria Hislop, married to Ian, of Have I Got News for You and Private Eye fame. When Victoria appears outside her house, I am momentarily even more anxious, as she looks incredibly glamorous in a fabulous 1960s style navy and white shift dress. She is tanned and beautifully groomed and we have come to meet her to take her out for a spin in a maroon Morris Minor Traveller, our editor Julie's dream car. Although undoubtedly charming, I don't think even the vintage car's most ardent fans would describe it as glamorous. What will Victoria think? I wonder, as I apologise for our lateness. To my surprise and relief, Victoria claps her hands together with delight and declares that one of her first boyfriends owned a Morris Traveller, and that she is thrilled to be in one again. She gamely climbs into the front seat and grapples with the old-fashioned seat belt, while kindly reassuring us that our lateness is forgiven.

Driven by Steve Parker from ESM Morris Minors in Stonegate, we set off for Tonbridge to revisit Victoria's childhood and teenage haunts and the car seems to inspire a genuine trip down memory lane. "Ooh, I hope I won't be sick," Victoria announces shortly, rather to our alarm. "My grandparents had an old Austin Seven that smelled like this and they used to take my sister and me on seemingly interminable journeys. Of course, we were very low down in the back seat before the days of child car seats and they both smoked about 80 cigarettes a day, so although they probably had the windows open, the combination of the smoke and the smell of the leather seats would make me feel terribly sick. They thought it was a great treat – that was in the days when people used to go motoring for sheer pleasure. We used to follow the AA routes and we'd do the Blossom Route around Kent – I'm afraid that I was bored senseless – it's really not until you're much older that you appreciate the countryside." What does she think of the Weald now? " I love it. I don't think you can find lovelier countryside and there's something very real about Kentish people. There's a lack of snobbery here that you find in some parts of the country."

I ask whether she likes cars. "Ooh, I love them. Ian really doesn't care what he drives, but I'm quite different." So what would be Victoria's dream car? "I think I already drive it," she replies. "I have a convertible BMW and I adore it."

Tootling along, we notice that nearly all the other cars are overtaking us on the dual carriageway, but Victoria is unfazed and remarks that it's actually rather nice to drive in a more leisurely fashion. We enter Tonbridge and go to see her old primary school. It's a typical Victorian school building with those windows high up so that the pupils shouldn't be distracted from their lessons. There used to be a cattle market next to it and Victoria says she can still recall the noise of the livestock.

We are expected at the Picnic Basket Tearooms in the Pantiles in Tunbridge Wells for tea and scones, but before that, Victoria wants to see her parents' old home. At the end of a narrow private road, with high hedges either side, is a detached brick house that is substantial but understated in that necessarily austere post-war style. I ask whether Victoria thinks she was a particularly imaginative child, given that she now writes novels. "No, not particularly. I mean I didn't spend hours making up stories or anything." Victoria describes a childhood and adolescence that sounds very gregarious. She giggles at the number of pubs she used to go to in and around Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells. "When I was at the grammar school, we girls used to drink Cinzano and lemonade and we thought we were terrifically sophisticated." Although it was an all-girls school, and the pupils were not even allowed to walk on the same side of the road as the boys from the boys' school, outside of school hours, Victoria and her friends seem to have socialised widely and especially with those from the nearby Tonbridge public school. Victoria remarks upon the pleasing symmetry of her son now attending that same boys' school. The socialising obviously did her no harm and she was clever enough to go to St Hilda's College Oxford (where she met Ian), before embarking on a career in publishing and journalism. Though obviously disciplined in her work, she is relaxed and humorous. Victoria seems to look back on her early life with happy satisfaction but without wistful nostalgia. Her reflections sound as if they come from someone who had a happy childhood but for whom life has got better and better. This is not to say that she is at all smug, she just seems refreshingly at ease with herself. Victoria emanates a rather un-English can-do spirit and I'm unsurprised to discover that she's the co-author of two self-help books, with former Olympic swimmer Duncan Goodhew, one of which is called Fix Your Life – Now!

Victoria's first novel, The Island, tells the story of a family's connection with the island of Spinalonga, just off the coast of Crete, which from 1903 to 1957 was a leper colony. It deals with the separation of a mother from her husband and children and is almost unbearably sad in places. I ask Victoria what it was like to write those scenes and she tells me that it was extremely difficult. "I cried buckets. Not because I was weeping for the characters I'd created, but more for the people who actually went through that terrible ordeal. It was visiting the place that first inspired the book. I was going to write a travel piece about Spinalonga, but I knew it just wasn't enough. I had to write more and that's how the novel came about. I did a huge amount of research and at times it was emotionally extremely draining."

Just recently published, her new book, The Return, is set in another of Victoria's favourite locations, Granada in Spain. This time, the story takes place before and during the Spanish Civil War and it explores the effects of such a conflict on a family and the fact that so many were forced to choose sides, with terrible consequences. Again, it was harrowing to research, but Victoria is excited about its launch and while we are out, receives several calls about it.

In need of refreshment, we stop at the Pantiles. Victoria used to come here to Binns Corner House with her friends or her sister for "grown-up" cream teas. Binns has closed down, and The Picnic Basket has opened in its place. They welcome us most warmly and we sit at a table outside for just a few minutes before steaming pots of tea and warmed scones arrive with plenty of strawberry jam and thick cream.

We return Victoria to her home much later than anticipated, but she doesn't seem to mind. Despite the inauspicious start, I think she has enjoyed her nostalgic afternoon, but, as she says goodbye, I can see she's already gearing up for a return to life in the fast lane.

The Return, by Victoria Hislop, is published in hardcover by Headline Review and is available from local bookshops, rrp £17.99.

Many thanks to our chauffeur Steve Parker from ESM Morris Minors Ltd, in Stonegate, for providing us with the beautiful Morris Traveller. ESM specialise in sales, spares and restoration of Morris Minors, tel 01580 200203 www.morrisminorspares.co.uk. Also to The Picnic Basket in the Pantiles for their delicious cream teas, tel 01892 527690.