Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has told her husband the first thing she wants is for him to make her a cup of tea when she gets back to Britain after being held captive in Iran for six years.

Richard Ratcliffe said she would probably be directing tidying-up at their home in north-west London but that the family first planned to find some solace elsewhere for a few days.

He said there was “huge relief” that his wife was on the journey back to the UK, where he hoped they could embark on a “new life” together.

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was detained on security charges by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard at Imam Khomeini airport in 2016 after a holiday visit to Iran where she introduced her daughter Gabriella to her parents.

On Wednesday, it was announced she had been freed after the UK Government settled a £400 million debt relating to a military deal in the 1970s.

Mr Ratcliffe said he hoped the homecoming would allow them to “stop being a moment in history and become a normal family again”.

Speaking to broadcasters alongside Gabriella, aged seven, outside their home in the capital, he said: “There will probably be a couple of days of peace and quiet somewhere else, and then back here.

“The first thing she wanted was for me to make her a cup of tea, so we will do (that).

“I think actually we were looking at the house and it needs a bit of tidying, so there might be a bit of tidying, perhaps directed by mummy when she comes back.”

Mr Ratcliffe, who has twice been on hunger strike while campaigning for his wife’s return, said there would be “bumps” as the 43-year-old adjusts to her surroundings.

“There is a recovery process – you can’t get back the time that is gone, that’s a fact,” he said in response to being asked about how the family planned to make up for the six years apart.

“But we live in the future and not the past, so we’ll take it one day at a time.”

He continued: “I think it is going to be the beginning of a new life, a normal life, and hopefully a happy family.

“And there will be bumps, no doubt, and all the normal squabbles we had before but, yeah, I think we’re really looking forward to seeing her.”

Mr Ratcliffe described his wife as “pretty agitated” in the run-up to getting on a plane out of Iran but said she had been grinning since boarding the plane, on which she is headed to the Gulf state of Oman before travelling on a second flight to Britain.