Yacout Info: You are a speaker, you have worked on TV programmes, you are a writer of five books, and a tour leader- which do you enjoy most?
Celia Sandys: It's difficult to say. I enjoy them all in different ways. I like being with people,and doing research work for my books, television and filming work and the tours. Tours are very much to do with people and with certain adventures along the way, it's all fun.

Q: I noticed you have been in South Africa quite often?
A: Yes I was in South Africa quite a bit researching my second book but then I did a big tour of South Africa ten years ago. Most of the tours I do are to Morocco and this year I am doing three , one in May, with a small group and then in September with a very large group which is , an association of a number of London guilds. Then I am coming back to Morocco again,in September with a group from Kirker Travel which will be staying at La Mamounia for 5 days, which I visited today.

Q: Were the allied conferences during the war with Churchill, Roosvelt and Stalin in Tehran and Yalta an important time for Winston Churchill?
A: Yes it was a very interesting period. There was an assassination plot in Tehran, featuring a planned attack with German paratroopers . I met one of the people involved in this who discovered the plot .He was a double agent and I interviewed him in Moscow, he was a delightful man. This plot was forestalled and then they decided to try and kill my grandfather on his birthday by poisoning the water supply to the British embassy but this plan failed as well.

Q: Did Churchill have a heart attack and fly to Marrakech to recuperate?
A: Yes he did, he only completed one painting during the war and it was in Marrakech after Roosvelt left the Villa Taylor. When he was here in Marrakech he had pneumonia. He had a heart attack in the embassy in Washington but recuperated here and they flew out a new wonder drug M and B from London which helped him recover.

Q: What do you feel about Morocco?
A: I love it. I first came here in 1984 with my older son and we had an amazing time in the middle of summer in August. We wanted to go to Russia but couldn't get a visa in time, so we came to Morocco and we hired a car and drove as far as we could go to the desert. We stayed in a hotel in either Ouazarzate or Zagora which was fairly rough. I had this extraordinary experience when the man who served us dinner asked if we would like to see the sunrise amongst the desert dunes. My son was 16 and we climbed to the top of a dune with the waiter who came with us and we reached the top of the dune. This was obviously the waiter's party trick and he flung his arms around me and we rolled all the way down the dune! We eventually found a Bedouin with his tent with various artefacts for sale which had just appeared and there was another man buried up to his neck in sand for a rheumatism cure, it was extraordinary but quite fun!

Q: Do you see changes in Morocco now in terms of tourism development and the growth of infrastructure?
A: I didn't return to Morocco until 2000 and one notices now an incredible amount of new building and the souk has changed and is much less frenetic. There is less pressure to buy and more time to enjoy the experience and see the artefacts. Previously there was considerable sales pressure but it’s much improved now. Many good things remain unchanged and as I said in a previous interview, Yacout restaurant remains top of my list of restaurants. Morocco's development into a modern society is very advanced.

Q: Is there another new tour you are going to lead next year?
A: Yes to Cuba, my grandfather went there in 1895 and again in 1946. They were two very different trips, in 1895 it was the first time he saw action with shots fired in anger on his twenty first birthday. He was nearly killed and on the next visit he was the most famous person in the world in 1946. They were very different occasions, a great historical contrast.

Q: Have you been to Malakand in Pakistan where your grandfather had another brush with death?
A: Yes there is a Churchill memorial there, which I visited sometime ago in 1985.

Q: Do you plan your tours very far in advance?
A: It depends, unless someone wants to gather a group together you do have to plan quite far in advance. Last year I cancelled all the planned tours because of the global economic crisis. Even if people could afford to travel they didn't want to be seen to be doing it. This year will work differently and I do try to plan the tours as far as possible in advance.

Q: You have had a number of speaking engagements in America with academic and other bodies; do you feel that they have a special appreciation for your grandfather?
A: Yes it’s huge and they are much more extrovert and open about it.

Q: Are you planning more speaking tours in America?
A: Yes, absolutely.

Q: Did you enjoy the film you made on the Discovery Channel?
A: I did, very much, I really enjoyed it. The film didn't reveal much that was new because it was based on a book I had already written. There were some wonderful and exciting experiences, as well as being slightly scary because I had never done anything like it before. It was like a travelling circus or participating in the reality show. There were six of us travelling together, and we hardly knew each other to begin with. Altogether we were on the road for four and half to five months. We started in South Africa and then went to Morocco, America, Cuba, Egypt and the South of France and we were all pretty tired at the end of it. There were moments of high stress and frenzy.