USA Independence Day Special: In search of Scarlett O'Hara in Atlanta

Can a Yankee appreciate a true Southern belle?

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In the years before video, my family treated the annual airing on TV of Gone with the Wind as a sacred occasion. Later, as a teenager, I survived my first big heartbreak by reading straight through Margaret Mitchell's almost thousand-page tome. (if Scarlett O'Hara can't get you over a man, no one can). So while travelling through Atlanta, I bypassed its more prosaic tourist attractions, namely the World of Coca-Cola and the CNN Center tour. Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn about all that.

So what do you give a damn about?

Top of the list is the Margaret Mitchell House and Museum, listed on the National Register of Historic Sites. You can tour the apartment where Mitchell wrote her magnum opus. Photos of the author, her dresses, and her typewriter help to bring her out of the shadow of her heroine. I also visited the Road to Tara Museum and went on the Gone with the Wind tour in neighbouring Jonesboro, 20 minutes south of Atlanta. In the museum you'll find everything from Civil War uniforms and bales of cotton to exact replicas of the movie's costumes, as well as foreign versions of the famous movie poster. On the Italian poster Scarlett and Rhett tussle half-naked, while the Egyptian one shows only Scarlett, wearing a headscarf and veil.

Does the tour take you to Tara?

Sadly, no, because the big mansion existed only on MGM Studios' back lot. In the book, Tara was smaller and less grandiose, much like the house that belonged to Margaret Mitchell's great-grandfather, Philip Fitzgerald. He was an immigrant, not unlike Gerald O'Hara, Gone with the Wind's own patriarch. The Fitzgerald plantation stood on Tara Road in Jonesboro. In the 1960s, the house was bought by a Mrs Herman Talmadge and moved on to her property, but sadly it is not open to the public and is now dilapidated. One other building survived: the white clapboard playhouse Mitchell used when she visited her grandparents. It now sits behind a funeral home.

How much is fact?

The Civil War stories Mitchell heard from her grandmother were source material for the book. One was the tale of two relatives: Maddie Holliday fell in love with her cousin John Henry Holliday, but they couldn't marry and so she joined a convent, where she was known as Sister Melly. She is said to be the model for the saintly Melanie in the book. And what of the cousin? He went out west and was known around the OK Corral as Doc Holliday. For a true taste of the era, visit the Cyclorama, an enormous painting and diorama of the Battle of Atlanta.

Will the real Scarlett O'Hara stand up?

Scarlett was Mitchell's creation but the staff at the Margaret Mitchell House and Museum will tell you that she was similar to the author: fiery and independent. Mitchell was the first woman news reporter for the Atlanta Journal, and overcame the death of her fiancé in the First World War, a disastrous first marriage to an alcoholic, and her own ill-health to write her epic and win the Pulitzer Prize.

Why, I simply must have some GWTW memorabilia of my own!

You're in luck. Herb Bridges, who amassed the world's largest GWTW collection, is selling it on 24 July at Christie's auction house in New York(www.christies.com/promos). Among items on offer are Vivien Leigh's petticoat; a Scarlett doll; a pair of 1937 cast-iron Rhett and Scarlett bookends; a Moviola frame counter machine used in the original production, and various film posters.

Will the South rise again?

It already has. Common wisdom says US presidential candidates cannot win without taking the South. But the antebellum South has gone – dare I say it – with the wind. In the Confederate Memorial Cemetery in Jonesboro lies Robert Kennedy Holliday, Maddie's father. His epitaph: "The war is over, let's get on with it." Scarlett would no doubt agree.

Where should I stay?

Try the Tarleton Oaks B&B (001 877 588 4989) in Barnesville. It's owned by Fred Crane, who played one of the Tarleton twins in the opening scene of Gone With The Wind. Doubles start from £100.

How do I get there?

British Airways (0845 773 3377; www.ba. com) has flights from Gatwick. A fare of £387 is available, if booked before 2 July, for travel from 1 August.