My first visit to the island of Spinalonga seems like it was yesterday.
In fact, it was 20 years ago, almost to the day.

It was 2001 and we were on holiday. My husband, Ian, our two children (then aged ten and eight) and I were staying just to the east of Agios Nikolaos in Crete in an apartment complex with three other families.
It was nice enough, with a swimming pool impractically shaped like the island of Crete, and access to the sea.

Each day, despite pressure from the children to spend the whole time on the beach or by the pool, we were determined to do some sightseeing.

By the second week, we had visited most of the archaeological sites in Eastern Crete and all the museums. The kids in the group had seen enough coins and pot fragments to put them off ancient culture for a long time.

Then I noticed in the guidebook, a three-line entry: ‘Spinalonga: Uninhabited island. Venetian island fortress, Turkish settlement and leper colony 1903-1957.' It was that latter date that caught my
r />I was born in 1959, and here was the opportunity to connect with a place that was considerably more recent than the Minoan period.

It would still have been warm with human presence when I was born. I knew little about leprosy other than having an image from Ben-Hur in my mind, of sufferers clanging bells and crying ‘Unclean! Unclean!', and of facial disfigurements.

I imagined fear and st

br />I suppose my interest in going was also partly fed by a ghoulish fascination. It was hard to corral the group of 16, but finally we left and drove 40 minutes to catch the last boat that would take us across the short strip of water.

Spinalonga is less than half a kilometre from the mainland of Crete, and we soon found ourselves stepping off onto the rickety j
br />Since that first visit, I have probably been there well over 100 times.

Spinalonga remains much as it was two decades ago. You arrive beneath the imposing curved walls of the Venetian fortification and pass through a long, dark tunnel that leads into what was the main inhabited area of the island.

For a few moments, in the bend of the tunnel, you are in darkness and it is hard not to feel you are walking in the footsteps of those who were once diagnosed with an incurable disease, people who walked through these shadows and remained there for the rest of their lives.

Emerging into the light, you find yourself at one end of a charming street with little shops, pretty houses, pots of geraniums and often a cat lying in the shade.

Everything is in a state of gentle dereliction but somehow beaut

br />The extraordinary thing about this place is that it looks like any other dilapidated but appealing village in the hills of rural Crete.

I was instantly charmed by it on my first visit, not least because of the paradox I encountered.