The hat of the title – Travels with My Hat– is a famous hat, quite old for a piece of millinery. It has been on the road for decades, worn by the author, Christine Osborne, an international travel writer and photographer whose many adventures even include one with Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth.

Egypt, Ethiopia, Morocco, Pakistan, Iraq and Yemen are some of the countries I visited after turning my back on nursing for a career in the media. First in Australia, then in England where I used London as a base for more than forty years of freelancing in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.

Tell us about the book.
Each chapter is a behind-the-scenes account of my unique experiences: foiling bandits in Yemen, dining with sheikhs in Dubai, and feeling the breath of death on top of the spiral minaret in Samarra, in Iraq.

The book covers the history and geography of these and other places, rarely visited by tourists, at a time when there were no apps and in some of the Arab States of the Gulf, no hotels or maps. But above all it describes encounters with the local people, most friendly, occasionally frightening.

Since you’re a lauded photographer, I guess we can expect photos of your travels?
Travels with My Hat: A Lifetime on the Road contains 78 colour and black-and-white photographs and maps of each country.

What kind of readers will it appeal to?
I originally felt it had most appeal to a female audience, but sales indicate it has been read and enjoyed by equal numbers of men. Backpackers will find it an amazing collection of adventures, impossible today when travellers are spoilt for choice via Trip Advisor and by a myriad blogs on the internet.

You’ve got a great site too, though, haven’t you? Where is it?
www.travelswithmyhat.com.

You meet quite a cast of characters on your journeys. Give us a quick roll call.
HM Queen Elizabeth, the Queen of Sheba, Ava Gardner, General Zia al Haq, the Emperor Haile Selassie, nomads, dacoits, farmers, fishermen, sailors and other peoples met en passant.

Oh wow, that sounds like the guest list at an imaginary dinner party!
Have you written any other books?
My first book The Gulf States and Oman published in 1977 has become classic reading on how the discovery of vast oil and gas deposits changed entire lifestyles for the Bedouin. An Insight and Guide to Pakistan, published by Longman in 1983, provides a good overall picture of Pakistan which is now pretty well off limits for tourists. I recommend the chapter on the little known province of Baluchistan. All books are illustrated with my photographs.

You’ve won awards for your work.
Yes, I have won two PATA awards for travel articles, the first for a series of South East Asia and a second time for a feature on Burma.

Travels with My Hat: A lifetime on the Road has been declared best non-fiction, self published book 2014 by the Self Publishing Review in America.

Do you use social media?
@mudskipper.

What’s next?
I may write a sequel but right now I am occupied in publicising and marketing the book which will go into a second printing.