It was a peach-pink villa, or rather there were two of them, one at each end of a long garden scented with roses. One little house for my husband and me, the other for our two boys. We had left booking late, and these twin villas, Eleni and Margarita, 50m apart and divided by a pool, were all we could find for half term.

Our wary eight-year-old demanded a torch, lights left on and my iPod to soothe him all night. He worried that we would be too far away to save him in the event of a snake or scorpion attack.

But to his brother Joe, 10, the separate living arrangement was entirely apt. We had come to Corfu to celebrate a kind of childhood my urban son dreams of, one described in his favourite book, Gerald Durrell’s memoir of his Corfu childhood, My Family and Other Animals. Reading this with him, and enjoying the BBC adaptation last Christmas, it struck me that what enchanted Joe wasn’t so much the wildlife — unlike young Gerald he lacks the concentration to observe a trap-door spider for five hours — but the idea of a boy being capable and self-reliant, alone on a magical foreign island.

On his five years on Corfu, in the late 1930s, Durrell ran feral on the hillsides and beaches. He had his dogs, a boat — the Bootle-Bumtrinket — and befriended Greek locals, while being treated by his own family with a benign neglect likely these days to provoke a call to Childline.

Flying in to Corfu today, Durrell devotees cannot help but be disappointed as the plane skims the built-up resorts of the south, the hills peppered with cheap, pastel-coloured apartments built down to the shore. “I thought it would be more like that,” said Joe, pointing disconsolately at the wild Albanian coast which, at points, almost touches Corfu.

But we were heading north for the resort of Agios Stefanos. David Cameron and family, who spent last summer here, would have gone unnoticed among the middle-class families. I asked a waiter if other nationalities visited. “No, all British,” he replied cheerfully.

Corfu has always embraced the English. The island was a British protectorate in the early 19th century and its romantic capital, Corfu Town, had its own cricket team. The island was a favourite among departing families of the Indian Raj — like the Durrells.

On the second day, we woke to find Joe’s bed empty; a note read “Gone fishing”. We knew he was somewhere around Stefanos’s small bay, a minute’s walk from our villas. We found him on the quay outside the Gallini bar where he was trying to catch breakfast. A waiter was offering advice: bread and feta cheese rolled into pellets would guarantee a bite.

In the course of that week there was no one who didn’t pitch in a fishing tip. Bits of shrimp were the answer, said one taverna manager, bringing some from the kitchen. But the fish of the Ionian sea were too canny. So, like Gerald Durrell, we took to a boat, one of the nippy motorboats we had seen chugging around the inlets. In the evenings, rich and elegant couples — he in chinos and deck shoes, she in a pashmina — would motor into Stefanos harbour from private villas down the coast. It looked the height of chic holiday living.

After ten minutes’ training from Yanni’s boat hire, we received a possibly alarmist warning not to land in Albania or risk being held to ransom. Then we were free to explore afloat and alone.

We tootled a few miles, sunbathed and splashed about on the rocks, failed to catch fish, visited beaches unreachable by land. Then, as we headed back about 5pm, the wind rose, turning the sea choppy, and our low-lying boat was hit by a series of waves. Screaming at my husband to put lifejackets on our children, I noticed he was ignoring me, having — for the first time that holiday — a bite on his fishing line.

There were ten minutes of we’re-all-going-to-die before we retreated to the shelter of the nearest inlet. I was set to dump the boat and yomp over hills to Stefanos, but my husband took the helm and we motored back, buffeted violently at each headland. I was beginning to think I’d assumed the role of Margo (Gerald’s hysterical older sister), until we got back. A couple of tough-looking British fishermen brought their boat in and jokingly kissed the quay with relief. The wind turns at this time every day — pity no one warned us.

Modern Corfu had a way of tempting us away from the Durrell trail. We abandoned a search for the villas inhabited by Gerald’s family and detoured to Aqualand water park in Agios Ioannis. I’m sure if it had existed 60 years ago the young Gerald would have paused from raising owl chicks to plunge down the Black Hole.

Then, on the last evening, wishing we could have been here before mass tourism defaced Corfu’s beauty, we came across a mountain road. We climbed high above a valleand arrived at the ancient settlement of Old Perithia. Now it is a ghost-town, the villagers have moved to the coast, tourists being more lucrative than goats and sheep. Watching Joe pick through the ruins of cottages and churches, you could, at last, imagine the young Gerald with a lizard in each pocket, roaming this hillside before stopping at a shepherd’s home for cheese and figs.

Need to know

Getting there: Janice Turner and family travelled with the villa specialists CV Travel (0870 6060013, www.cvtravel.co.uk). A week’s stay at Eleni and Margarita is from £475pp based on four sharing. The price includes return charter flights from Gatwick, taxi transfers, maid service, linen change twice weekly and food hamper. Car and boat hire can be arranged.

Reading: My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell (Penguin, £7.99).

In the Durrells' footsteps: The Durrell family lived in three villas on Corfu from 1935 to 1939 — the Strawberry-Pink villa, the Daffodil-Yellow villa and the Snow-White villa. The White House in Kalami, where Gerald’s elder brother, Lawrence, lived is available through CV Travel (as above). Up to eight sharing pay from £425pp for a week, including flights and taxi transfers. You can sit at the dining table where Durrell worked, and there are copies of his books.
Caroline Hendrie

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