When I indulged in childhood fantasies of a Champion the Wonder Horse, Virginian and High Chaparral inspired ranch holiday in America, I never dreamed that my own state of mind would create the biggest barrier to their realisation.  My adult life has been marked by constant tension between the anxiety that I have experienced for as long as I can remember and my desire to try new activities and experience new places.

While I was growing up travelling was not particularly anxiety provoking although I was acutely anxious about almost everything else from getting good grades at school to mixing with new people.  In fact some of my happiest childhood memories are from holidays taken in many different parts of the UK.

Until I was eleven we lived in a pleasant area of north London adjacent to several extensive parks and these were my local "countryside".  My parents didn't learn to drive until I was about nine or ten, but in the mid sixties no one thought twice about travelling by public transport.  Now the prospect of a family of four travelling to North Wales for a fortnight's holiday by train seems ludicrously laden with potential problems (although I am sure people still do it).

Indeed I loved rail travel particularly when we changed onto a real steam train for a journey across mid Wales.  Later, when we acquired a car, my brother and I delighted in encouraging my parents to explore the smallest, twistiest routes we could find on the map.  Excitement was proportional to the narrowness of the road, the amount of grass growing down the middle and the number of hairpin bends!

I am among those who swear that summer weather was much more reliable way back then.  My memories are full of endless sunny days spent playing and swimming on south coast beaches from Littlehampton round the Isle of Wight to Swanage and Weymouth or picnicking on chalk downs amid profusions of butterflies, birds and wildflowers.  My worst fear was being stung by the jellyfish that also visited those beaches when the weather conditions favoured them.

When we got bored with the beach we toured the local places of interest like Corfe Castle, Blackgang Chine and the Needles by bus.  In the late sixties our second hand Ford Anglia estate allowed us more freedom and we expanded our horizons southwest.  Exmoor's hills and heather seemed all together more wild and exciting than the South Downs.  I was amazed when, years later, I revisited Dunkery Beacon to find that, in comparison with the northern hills I'd grown familiar with, it wasn't the mountain walk I remembered but a short and pleasant moorland stroll.

Our trips to mid and North Wales were significant in spawning my lifelong love of the hills.  Although I was born a city girl Snowdonia stirred my soul and that love of high places has been a driving force in helping me to overcome the adventure angst that later developed.  As a teenager there was only excitement at climbing my first mountain.  I don't even recall it being the hard slog it seemed when I recently re-climbed Snowdon by a similar route.