My Holidays

Bill Hughes - founder of Mind the Gap Films

What’s your earliest holiday memory?

Going to visit my grandparents in Borrisokane, Co Tipperary. We fed chickens, gathered turf in the ass and cart and collected raspberries. We also used to go on holiday to a caravan site in Ardamine, Co Wexford. It was a lovely drop down a hill to the beach and I remember sitting in the water for hours.

What was your worst holiday?

Hostelling on the Isle of Wight in 1976. It had the worst food I ever remember in greasy spoon cafes. It's a hideous place. It's so trapped in a time warp, it's like an episode of Bergerac.

What was your best holiday?

I met my partner on holiday in September 1997 in Sitges outside Barcelona, so that’s up there. We also had his 40th birthday in South Africa on a safari and wine trip two years ago before the world collapsed.

But now my favourite holiday is Provincetown in Cape Cod. I’ve been going there for a few years, you take a 90-minute ferry from Boston.

It really feels like a different planet, so relaxed, anything goes. There is no sign of corporate America, there’s local food in the restaurants and great bars. There’s no high-rise and the houses are made of wood with picket fences and rose bushes. It’s a civilised grown-up place. It’s very gay and it’s nice to feel part of the community.

If budget or work were not a restriction, what would be your dream holiday?

I’d love to travel Argentina from top to bottom for a month. I’d go to Patagonia, learn the tango in Buenos Aires, ride with gauchos in pampas, drink the local wine, eat their great food.

If you had your pick, who would you bring on holiday with you?

My partner and closest friends are best if going on holiday for an extended period. For good weekends I’d pick my family. If you want to completely relax with no judgements then not family. But if you to be corrected and reminded of my shortcomings then a weekend with family!

What’s your favourite place in Ireland?

I often visit my brother, his wife and children in Clonakilty, west Cork. We go walking in Inchydoney Beach and it’s so beautiful there.

For pampering I go to Monart Spa in Co Wexford. It is fantastic and you go there to be looked after.

A mud treatment, a massage, a meal in the evening and the bed is so high you have to climb into it.

I did all my caravanning and camping as I child and I have no aspiration to return to those days.

Your recommended holiday reading?

I always bring biographies of heroes or heroines, people you look up to in life. I fell out of bed three times laughing reading My Trip Down the Pink Carpetby Leslie Jordan. I have met him and I like that he's certain of who he is and has a sense of self.

Where will you go to next?

I’ve been invited on holiday next year with a friend who is turning 50 to Luxor and the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. I can’t wait. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do and it would be rude to say no!

* Bill Hughes is a founder of Mind the Gap Films and has produced Hallelujah Broadwaywhich is out on CD and DVD.

In conversation with