UK actress samples Malta's olive culture

Carol Drinkwater, one of the main characters in the BBC's adaptation of All Creatures Great and Small, is in Malta for a short working holiday, writing about Malta as part of a bigger work on olive oil in the Mediterranean and also doing a travel piece about the island.

Ms Drinkwater is widely known for her portrayal of Helen Herriot in the BBC's adaptation of the James Herriot classic. But she is also the author of the international best selling trilogy: The Olive Farm, The Olive Season and Olive Harvest.

"The novels are a love story, my personal story, and it's about a love affair with the world of olives that led me and my husband to buy a dilapidated farmhouse in the south of France and brought it back to life," she said.

"But there is something for everybody in my books. They are like traveller's accounts of the Victorian age and I describe people, places and experiences in them," she said.

"That's what I am doing with the new book I am working on, writing about this remarkable Mediterranean and the countries that border it and the olive culture that pervades them," Ms Drinkwater said.

She is quite a strongly opinionated woman, boasting of having marched against Tony Blair when he decided to take Britain into the war in Iraq.

"I had been to those places, the fertile crescent. There are many small cultures there that have survived thousands of years but which have undoubtedly been eradicated by war. This is a great loss no one speaks about. No one speaks about ecological damages and the destruction of archaeological heritage because of war either," she said.

Ms Drinkwater has visited Malta a number of times and was not so keen on coming again this time.

"I used to do diving in Gozo during breaks from filming All Creatures Great and Small and I was going to give Malta a miss even for the book about olives but then I was persuaded to come and see this new culture that is growing here too, and I am glad I did," she said.

"I am stunned by the incredibly warmness of people here. They are friendly in a different way as they befriend you without expecting anything in return, and that is very different from many other parts of the world.

"The unspoilt parts of the islands are simply great but I must say there is a lot of over-development in many areas. And there is a big problem with hunting and trapping. You wake up and hear the popping of guns. Walk in the countryside and see birds in cages. It's very disturbing.

"I live in the south of France most of time and there is a lot of hunting there too. I don't like that either but it's different. It's not as intense as it is here and they shoot birds and animals to eat, not for the fun of killing them," she said.

"But I think that the positives still outweigh the negatives. In fact, the only things I dislike here are hunting and the bland tourism that spoils places fast," she said.