One afternoon back in 1994 student Lisa White switched on her tape recorder and asked her 74-year-old grandmother to recount the tale of how she met her husband.

Two hours later the machine had captured not only her voice but also a tale of exotic Indian shores, wartime courage and breathtaking romance that would echo far into Lisa’s future and set her on a journey from St Albans to Edinburgh Festival.

“We were supposed to find a stranger but I was always fascinated about my grandmother’s story,” says Lisa, now grown up and planning to get married herself this year.

“She reluctantly agreed and I asked a few questions and she talked for two hours.”

This summer Lisa will step into her grandmother’s shoes, first in St Albans and then Scotland, to perform one-woman play Lavender Junction, which will share the very personal coming-of-age tale with the rest of us.

Born Sheila Shrieves in colonial India, Lisa discovered her grandmother had been raised mostly by her Indian ayah, as was the tradition back and then, and was sent to convent school aged seven.

At 16 she came home and, displaying the strong will which Lisa says she would become known for, announced she was never going back and instead packed her bags and went to train as a nurse. When World War Two broke out the 21-year-old went to aid the army and was posted in a dysentery ward on her first day, tending to one particularly sick man.

“The next day he woke up and looked at her with his blue eyes and, despite her saying she never wanted to get married or have children, she said she knew that was the man she was going to marry. And she did.

“Yes, it was like a film romance,” says Lisa with a fond chuckle, about the star-crossed love between John McDonald, a Scottish Presbyterian, and Sheila, a Catholic girl, whose differing religions meant they had to get permission to wed.

When the war was over the couple arrived back in England with their six-week-old daughter, Lisa’s mother, with barely a penny and settled in Hammersmith where they stayed their whole lives.

Lisa says playing her beloved ‘nanny’ will be an intense experience.

“I didn’t want to mimic her so I have tried to create a version of the woman I remember. I have had a couple of moments when unexpectedly it’s become quite emotional but hopefully the emotional connection I have with it will help.”

It took almost two decades to bring the story to light as Lisa had put the tapes away in a box until some unseen force prompted her to dust them off a few years after her grandmother’s death in 2008.

“Listening to her voice again made me smile and laugh. At the time I didn’t realise how much she was giving me,” says the founder of St Albans theatre company Peppermint Muse, “and when I listened to them later I realised how rich it was in detail. It was extraordinary and utterly fascinating.”

She adds: “I think she told me things that she didn’t tell anyone else. She was very engaging and the big joke in the family is that it skipped a generation and I'm the actress she should have been."

So what would her grandmother have thought of the play?

"Her initial response would have been to tell me off because she made me promise not to let anyone hear them but I think secretly she would have been chuffed."

She also would have been proud to see her granddaughter fulfil her long-held dream to perform in Edinburgh.

"Hopefully this will be the start of us taking our shows outside of St Albans," says Lisa.

"But first I'm looking forward to performing at the Maltings which has nurtured me so much."

Maltings Art Theatre, Level 2 The Maltings, St Albans, July 17 and 18, 8pm. Details: 0333 666 3366, ticketsource.co.uk/ovo, peppermintmuse.co.uk