I was born in Liverpool and have just a few snapshot memories of our early holidays. A sandwich floating in the lido at New Brighton; a holiday at Butlins, where I got a Dalek; my mum insisting after one night’s camping that we move to a hotel. But most of those memories were just blown away by Africa.

We moved out to Zambia when I was six, so I had fantastic childhood holidays. Instead of coming home, like many expat families, we would go travelling for two or three weeks. We’d drive through to what was then Rhodesia or go to the beaches of Mozambique. We stayed on the coast at Beira, an old Portuguese resort, which was fantastic.

We used to swim in the Mozambique Channel, and I remember my dad telling us to go further out. “Go on, get out there!” he’d yell. I found out later that that stretch of water is the most shark-infested in Africa, if not the world. But this was preJaws, I suppose, so maybe nobody thought much about great whites then. Even so, I have trouble getting into the Med these days.

We saw the most astonishing things on those holidays. In the Nyanga Mountains, in Zimbabwe, there’s a complex of caves containing a pool that is turquoise and aquamarine: the most wonderful colours. It’s completely underground, but up in the roof above it is a hole that allows sunlight in, which makes it glow like a jewel. We were told they had tried to find the depth of the pool, but had stopped at 400ft. The thought of that blew my mind. I’d say to my mum, “What if I’d fallen in?” And she’d say, “Well, you didn’t.” And I’d reply, “But what if I had?” It was the stuff of nightmares to me, this bottomless pool. I used a lot of those memories, and of trips down the copper mines where my dad worked, in the books.

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I really like America. It’s the size of the skies when you get out west - it reminds me of Africa, where the sky’s always huge. I did a small road movie with a friend, and we went into Death Valley, stopped the car and got out, which you aren’t supposed to do. As you step out of your air-conditioned cocoon, the heat hits you like a punch. You can feel all the moisture being sucked out of you. Even more astonishing than that is the total silence. There was nothing but the ticking of the car’s engine.

I do love cities, though, especially New York. The first time I went, I travelled by train from Los Angeles. You go on the Texas Eagle to Chicago, where you arrive at the marvellous Union station, as used in Brian De Palma’s film The Untouchables. Then you change to the Lake Shore Limited for New York. It’s a five-hour stopover, but don’t worry - Union station has a fabulous old-fashioned, polished bar.

I arrived in New York with a hurricane coming up the coast and horizontal rain belting along the avenues. I couldn’t get a room anywhere because all flights out had been cancelled. It was the end of fashion week, so the city was full of stranded skinny people.

Eventually, I got a room at a place that was supposed to be upmarket, but nothing worked and everywhere was filthy. I asked to change rooms, but the next one was worse. Then they wouldn’t give me my deposit back until I made a scene.

So, back outside, still no room, I met friends of friends for a drink and they told me that the Holiday Inn in Chinatown always had space. In I went and ... no room. But the desk guy said he’d find me somewhere. Eventually, he woke me up from a snooze and said, “Got somewhere, cab’s outside, he knows where to go.” And it dropped me back where I’d started.

I haven’t been back to Africa since we left when I was 13. I don’t think I should go back to Zambia, though - it won’t be the same seen through the eyes of an adult, and it’s been through tough times. North Africa and the Sahara appeals, for those huge skies again, but I don’t really like the heat any more. Maybe Antarctica - that’s a desert and it’s cold.

Yes, a year at the South Pole, really getting to know it. That would do me.

Brian Williams talked to Rob Ryan

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