The award-winning journalist and author Anna Smith, 50, met Franco Rey, 62, the former Eldorado star, during the run-up to the Celtic v Porto Uefa Cup final in Seville in 2003. They became firm friends and are now planning to take part in the Mongol Rally in July, driving from Scotland to Mongolia in a 14-year-old Ford Fiesta to raise funds for charity.

Anna

I was supposed to be Franco’s boss in Seville — I’d employed him as a fixer so that the newspaper I was working with would get the best stories, but after about three days I got the feeling that I was working for him. His job was to smooth the way, open doors for me, that sort of thing, but he soon had everyone from the mayor’s office to the chief of police asking him how best to handle the influx of Celtic fans while I sat waiting for him to let me get a word in. I’m an investigative reporter. I’ve worked in war zones, seen the piles of dead bodies, so for me Seville was an utterly joyful and unusual assignment.

Franco’s got a strong personality and so do I, so it does make for rather explosive clashes. In fact, the first thing he did when I met him was to make some comment about how he wasn’t getting paid enough. We’d barely even said hello and he was already giving me cheek. I remember thinking, ‘This guy, I like.’

Some people think we’re married because we argue, but we call ourselves the Odd Couple — lots of affection, but just close friends. He’s such a proud Spaniard that he has really opened my mind about Spain. He lives near Fuengirola, which is a bit pie and chips to a British visitor, but just two streets away there’s real Spanish life going on, and we go there.

The idea of doing this Mongol Rally started as a joke — it’s really supposed to be something for young people to do to raise money for charity, driving to Mongolia in a 1,000cc car and having a wild adventure. His daughter was talking about it, and he laughed and said: ‘I’d love to go — you and me in a car for a month, can you imagine?’

Yet from such a silly idea, it’s grown arms and legs. Shields Garage donated a car and we’ve had donations of a tent and so much help from people. We’re driving all the way to Mongolia but we have to give the car away at the end, so we’ll be stranded in Ulan Bator. All we’re looking for now is some help with flights back. You know, you hear of compassion fatigue, but that’s not our experience.

Franco’s older, but he has more energy than me, which is galling when you think that I do a bit of training and he smokes 50 fags a day.

He’s in charge of the practical side of things, the organisation, logistics and maps to get us there, but I’ll only manage to let him be the boss until Bothwell service station. But we’ll get there in the end. Too many people are relying on us not to give it everything. Even if we spend the month in stony silence, we’ll get there.

Franco

My first impression of Anna? Bossy. Very bossy. Anyone who knows Anna will understand what I mean by that. She always wants her own way, she can’t help it. It works: very often she ends up getting her own way.

I’d been contacted by the newspaper she was working for at the time. She was very senior, and very much in charge. We worked together every day for four weeks, so by the end we were very close. But no romance, just very, very good pals. Any kind of romance would destroy the honest relationship that we have, I think. Anyway, every time we are together, we fight, so it's like we are married already.

Over the years Anna has come over to Spain to write her novels, so I have enjoyed showing her where I live. I come over to the UK also, and we have met each other’s families.

When my daughter mentioned the rally I thought, ‘Oh, that looks interesting,’ and suddenly we were signed up. I don’t think either Anna or I had really thought about it too hard or put our full senses into it, but it’s too late now. Ten thousand miles in 22 days, sleeping in a small car, driving through Europe, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Russia and Mongolia — it’ll be bloody hard on us both. I hope she’s a good driver.

When I was filming Eldorado, my second wife, Miranda, was dying with breast cancer, so we are raising money for breast cancer charities as well as children. It’s very important to Anna and me. I’ve travelled with Anna before. She was a reporter for 30 years and she’s a very warm person, making connections with people whether she can speak their language or not. And she’s an author, so travel will benefit her writing and push her imagination. Not that her imagination needs a lot of pushing, believe me.

I think we will argue in the car. I’m sure of it. I’m taking a shovel in case I need to make her disappear. In fact, I’ve said that for the right donation to charity, I’m prepared not to bring her back at all . . . you wouldn’t believe how many offers I’ve had already.

For more details or to donate, visit www.theoddcouplemongolrally.co.uk