When Maeve Binchyvisited Cape Town she realised there was something familiar about its relaxed approach to life, and the fact that everyone there had a story to tell. That made it the perfect setting for her new story, to be screened on RTÉ tomorrow
When I first went to Cape Town it reminded me of home. At first I couldn't understand why. It was January and the sun was shining; people were flinging themselves into the sea instead of wrapping up in warm coats. There were huge flowers tumbling down from the sides of buildings instead of windswept streets with horizontal rain. But there was something familiar. And then I realised what it was. Everyone had a story to tell and time to tell it.
In Ireland we greatly value long, apparently aimless but cheerful conversation, and I found exactly the same thing in Cape Town. The English don't speak unless they have something to say, which is very confusing. I spent a long time trying to chat to people at London bus stops about the weather, the frequency of buses, the state of the country and the future of mankind.
In England they don't do that. They thought I was from a home for the bewildered and moved away from me. Where I was brought up it was discourteous not to talk to a fellow passenger, a fellow diner or an occupant of the same park bench looking out at the sea. And I found this all over again in Cape Town.
I sat for hours talking to people. A man who ran a cafe explained that line fish was just a fish caught on a line. I had thought it was a South African species. I talked to a woman who had gone from Amsterdam to Cape Town to visit her son eight years ago and was still there. A man in a souvenir shop assured me that cushion covers in bright colours made the most acceptable gifts.
There was an easy shorthand between people, which I liked at once. It didn't matter if they had lived there all their lives or only arrived last year. There was a sense of hope and determination that this place would work. We have a streak of that in us, too. But there's more of it about in Cape Town, and it's very easy to see.
I loved the way that statues and monuments to previous regimes were allowed to stand there as part of the country's past. In Ireland we were not always as generous with emblems of the British empire. And in Cape Town people everywhere want you to see their city and to enjoy it.
I looked fearfully at the dangerous-looking contraption that would take me up Table Mountain. "Perhaps not" was written all over my face, but passers-by reassured me, and so up I went. Down at the Cape of Good Hope, where we were urged not to feed the baboons, we paused to look at the view. A mother baboon knocked at the car window. She had big sad eyes and a small baby baboon attached to her. She pointed first at her baby and then at the bar of chocolate she could see in the car. There was no way I could keep the rules and regulations.
Somewhere in that national park is a young strong baboon with a sweet tooth hoping that another silly tourist will turn up and feed him chocolate.
So Cape Town has always been in my mind, and when I was asked to write a story that might be filmed it seemed obvious that this is where it should be set. A place where there is always hope and the sound of laughter is never far away.
I had an idea about the unexpected friendship between an Irishman, Neil, who had a problem with alcohol and an Irishwoman, Ruth, who had a problem with loving a really wrong man. They meet in the hopeful, forward-looking world of Cape Town and decide against all the odds to open a small hotel.
Naturally, the road to this goal is not easy. If it were, the story would be over in two minutes. I wish I were there today, watching the filming in the sunshine, revisiting all the places where I was so happy on my frequent visits.
It's obvious that when the film is shown in Ireland an even greater crowd than usual will be standing in line to board the night flight that will have them in Cape Town for breakfast.
But I also hope that people in South Africa might feel the same sense of affinity and familiarity as I feel about the two places. If they come to Ireland they will be very welcome, and we will pause in our day to talk to them.
The greatest piece of advice you can ever give a visitor to Ireland is to tell them to ask questions. It always gets results, because we Irish are very keen to give our views. I have heard Americans ask where they might go to hear folk ballads sung, and an entire public house would become involved in the debate about the merits of this place rather than that.
I heard a Belgian saying he had only one day in Dublin, and he wondered what he should see. Having been roundly abused for leaving such limited time to tour a capital city, he was then pointed to the city bus tour and given half a dozen places to try for lunch.
And in our spring, summer and autumn, with their mild, gentle weather, our mountains are purple and our seas are blue. I think they'd like it here, too. No, make that more definite. I know they'd like it here - and the more stories they have to tell, the better.
Anner House is on RTÉ1 tomorrow at 9.40pm