IT was trundling back and forth along the Côte D’Azur as a kid that I caught the railway bug.

Back then trains had names and Nice, Cannes and Monaco, although notable places, were merely stopping points between Paris and Rome.

Passengers had an elegance you could sense from their clothes or their luggage - a single piece of jewellery or a good watch was all they needed to personify the glamour of the time and the fact that less is always more.

Today’s trains are instead rammed with bucketlisting Sharyns and Darrons and too many tattoos and piercings. And the guy whose razor elbows beat me to the window seat, infuriatingly spent the entire journey along that glorious coast glued to his phone and not the views.

Monaco has changed too. Formula One was never my thing but I always try to catch the Grand Prix on TV when it’s here to see the grandstands I remember being built when I was wee.

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Then, the harbour was full of beautiful sailing ships belonging to King Hussein of Jordan and the Aga Khan.

Moored now are the gaudy super yachts of Russian oligarchs and spendthrifts who own Premiership football clubs.

They have a hundred times the wealth of their predecessors but a hundredth of the class.

Worst for me was the impossibly beautiful American girl I sat opposite, whose downturned, unsmiling mouth displayed an immeasurable insouciance.

Had it ever opened I’m sure it would have spewed ice. Or venom.

I’m certain she is the kind of person for whom nothing is ever good enough. She held a Luis Vuitton gift bag and I’d guess that like everything in the Principality, whatever it contained, cost the earth.

I fear she would have been better off investing in a smile.

One of those childhood fantasies I had about my future career was that I would return to the Côte D’Azur as a journalist some day and it would all be a breeze because I would know my way around.

And so it proved in 1997 when STV sent me to cover the Cannes Film Festival, where Billy Connolly was hitting the headlines with Mrs Brown.

Ordinarily on foreign jobs, TV companies hire fixers, people who live locally and who know everyone and everything and can advise on where to eat and drink and park.

I told my bosses not to bother. The fixer would be me because I knew Cannes like the back of my hand and I could speak enough French to ensure nobody starved.

And so it proved. I spent the next few days chasing the Big Yin and Dame Judi around the Croisette, happily showing my colleagues a good time in a good town. Until the wheels came off.

After one live broadcast overlooking the marina, I received a vociferous rebuke from my producer back at Cowcaddens.

How dare I spend the company’s money on hiring a studio with a full lighting rig and a stock picture of yachts for a backdrop.

I protested my innocence and insisted I had done no such thing. It transpired that the Côte D’Azur view over my shoulder looked too good to be true on TV screens back in Scotland and my boss assumed it couldn’t possibly be real.