River City’s Eileen McCallum picks her favourite holiday destination… and it’s not Shieldinch!

EILEEN McCALLUM is one of the leading lights of Scottish BBC soap River City.

The popular actress, 80, has three children and lives in Edinburgh.

Eileen will join Judy Murray and Jenni Falconer on Lorraine Kelly’s Hogmanay 2016, which comes from HM Frigate Unicorn in Dundee.

STV, 11.15pm, Hogmanay.

MY most recent holiday has to be right up there will my all-time favourites.

I turned 80 a few weeks ago and my kids took me to Rome, which was wonderful.

I hadn’t been since the early 1960s and it was lovely to revisit places like the Sistine Chapel. My eldest son flew in from Nairobi, which was a nice surprise.

In fact, the whole thing was a total surprise which made it very special. The grandchildren all knew about it and nobody told me until we walked into the airport.

It was certainly a lot fancier than my childhood holiday memories.

In 1946 my parents took me up to Aboyne on Deeside and it was such a revelation to me after the war years.

I enjoyed such freedom, getting on a bike in the lovely countryside.

The first time I was ever in a plane was to go Paris with three old school friends in the 1950s.

It was so exciting for young girls being abroad.

Here in Scotland, we had a cottage in Speyside and spent years going for breaks there, renovating it bit by bit.

We had to go up the road to a wee spring for water and, although it eventually got wired up, we never had electricity. We’d play cards and I still remember cows looking in the window.

When I was working a lot in Take The High Road, I’d find myself with odd weeks off and I’d take off to somewhere for a rest.

I loved Ibiza – not the nightclubs, mind you. There were little buses that criss-crossed the island and boats that went round it.

And no matter which you chose or where you went, everything seemed to take half an hour.

It was very easy for a lady on her own and I’d hire a bike to explore.

And Sicily was another favourite.

I was used to cooking a lot of Italian food, so that was obviously a lovely place to sample it.

Now we go to a lovely little hotel in Andalucia.

I’ve been for the past six years and wouldn’t go anywhere else.