A final message from Keith Floyd: 'I travelled the world and shared the finest food with millions. Truly I was blessed. Thank you and Au Revoir'

By Keith Floyd
Updated: 04:07 EST, 16 September 2009

All this week, the Mail has been serialising Keith Floyd's witty and touching autobiography.

After his sudden death on Monday, we publish our last extract, in which he reflects on his tangles with television bosses, poignantly looks back on his fame - and concludes, after all, that fortune smiled on him.

Before I wrap up, we need to talk about the BBC and its wine-and-dine culture - or in the case of its presenters, its lack of it.

Au Revoir: A fittingly stylish finale to the memoirs of Keith Floyd after his death

Licence payers will be pleased to know that in all the years I made programmes for them, the BBC's money was never spent on schmoozing me. Quite the contrary.

Lofty and grand, the BBC does not invite you to events. It instructs you to be there.

One year I was told to turn up to a Christmas party being hosted by the board of governors at Broadcasting House. A man came up to me, shook my hand and started chatting. 

He was one of the few guests not to be an octogenarian, and I noticed he was wearing high-heeled cowboy boots with winkle-picker-type toes to them. I assumed he was a disc jockey.

Disc jockey: 'So what do you think of the BBC then?'

Me: 'Well, since you ask, I think it's absolutely c**p.' 

Living life to the full: Floyd with second wife Julie

A second or two later, he'd scurried away in his cowboy boots and vanished into the crowd. He turned out to be the next controller of BBC1.

Another man, with an accent so posh it had comedic value, came up to me, again without introducing himself, and said: 'Keith. How nice. What are you doing?'

I said: 'Oh, work-wise I am having great fun. I'm cooking all kinds of British food: pigs' trotters, stuffed hearts and offal and things like that.'

He nodded. 'And how are you enjoying it?' Me: 'It's quite hard really, but I think it's vitally important to get across that it's not just the middle cut of beef or the middle cut of salmon that we should be eating. We should be eating everything. And, of course, with a well-butchered pig there is nothing left but the squeal.'

No sooner had I finished the word squeal than he, too, was gone. He turned out to be the current controller of BBC1 and a raging vegetarian to boot.

Fast-forward to probably the early Nineties. I had a new manager, Stan. He called and said: 'Great news. Noel Edmonds really, really wants you to turn up on Noel's House Party.'

Me: 'What is Noel's House Party?' Stan said: 'It's a high-profile show. Can't do you any harm. Everybody does it.' So I said: 'OK.' 

Alfresco chef: Filming in the Orkneys

He gave the thumbs-up to Noel's team, and then a production assistant was on the phone to thank me very much for agreeing to do the show. I explained that I had never watched it and asked: 'What do I need to do exactly?'

'It's great fun,' she told me. 'Go on,' I said. 'The set is like a house. Noel is downstairs and above him is a balcony. You walk on to the balcony and the audience see you.'

Right, what next? 'Then you walk along the balcony and then you get shot down a chute and end up in a bucket of green gunk.'

I could hear myself repeating: 'Green gunk?'

'Yes. You, the chute, the gunk. We do it every week. It's the most popular part of the show.'

We ended the conversation with me saying how nice it was of them to think of me, thank you for inviting me on to the show, and that I was very much looking forward to going down the chute and into the green gunk. I don't know why I said that, but I did.

I arrived at the studio on the Saturday, as arranged, wearing a linen suit that I had recently bought for £700. And I took along new clothes that I could change into after being shot into the green gunk. 

Ladies man: The chef with his third wife Shaunagh

A production assistant shook my hand, clocked the expensive linen upon me and said: 'Don't worry. We'll return your suit, your bow-tie and your shoes. All clean and lovely.'

An hour later I was sliding down a chute and then drowning in green gunk.

It wasn't the worst experience of my life; a bit like being immersed in warm jelly. I changed and headed home with words of reassurance from one of the team: 'Don't worry about the suit. Leave it with us. I'll be all clean and lovely.'

Two days later, a man arrived at the front door of my home. He was holding a black bin bag, sent to me from the BBC.

Inside - and you'll know where this is going - were my clothes. But not as I knew them. Someone had put the lot in a washing machine and then sent them back wet and ruined. The shoes? Destroyed. Bow tie? Shrivelled.

As for my linen suit? Shrunk to fit an Action Man. They sent a letter that was gushing and kind and thanked me for going on to the show to be gunked. Don't get me started.

Fame can give - and fame can snatch away. It can give riches, but it has no respect for reality; it does not appreciate personal lives, family and the home. 

Last marriage: Floyd with fourth wife Tess

When I became famous, I became famous overnight. Suddenly everybody wanted to know Floyd.

Everybody. Women, radio stations, publishers, advertising agencies and after-dinner speaker agents. People with whom I didn't want to be friends befriended me without asking my permission. 

Going to the supermarket was a nightmare. If I happened to put into my basket Heinz tomato ketchup, Heinz cream of tomato soup and Marmite - and all these funny things that I like - people peered into my supermarket basket.

'Oh, do you eat baked beans?' they said. Yes, I do.

My private life became public. I'd go to the pub with my mates and people didn't pay any respect to my friends.

Early days: Floyd in the Tank Regiment

So my friends got cheesed off and didn't want to go out with me, because all I'd be doing was signing autographs with a little squiggle of a glass at the bottom.

My friends didn't enjoy that, and I don't suppose your friends would enjoy it, either. I wish this whole issue of fame didn't make me so grumpy, but I need to confront it, so please humour me.

There were times when I'd drive to a pub, park the car and then remain seated in it. I couldn't go in; bizarre though it sounds, I feared walking into the bar because I knew that to do so would involve signing autographs with little squiggles of wine glasses and answering queries about cooking.

So I'd sit in the car, thinking, I have now got a fantastic Jaguar, I've got hand-made shoes, I've got things I've never had in my life before, and I'm frightened to go into a pub. Frightened to go into a pub because I didn't want to talk about food.

When you are famous, people assume that they know you . . . and that even if they don't, then they can soon become your friend. It might sound an exaggeration, but a lot of the time I felt hunted.

As Charles Dickens wrote: 'It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.'

What were the best of times? I can barely remember one. Well - until I give it a little more thought, that is. Oh yes. I was able to buy a house. And I bought a Bentley or two; that was good fun.

Then there is the fact that at one time in my life I was hovering outside my restaurant in Bristol on the off-chance that the Rolling Stones, who were playing locally, might decide to come in - but years later, because of fame, they came to see me.

And who can grumble? I'm beginning to feel better already.

Also, I feel a terrific sense of achievement. I was and still am extremely proud of what I've been able to do.

I was lucky enough to be able to travel the world, at someone else's expense, and to taste magnificent dishes, cook with unusual and interesting ingredients, and share this knowledge with millions upon millions of television viewers and readers of my cookery books; not just the British, but people all around the globe.

Dear reader, sometimes I worry about what I've left out. And sometimes I worry about what I've put in. But, for now, as this book fades to black, I'll have another pastis. Thank you, and au revoir.

• Extracted from Stirred But Not Shaken: The Autobiography by Keith Floyd, to be published by Sidgwick & Jackson on October 2 at £18.99. © 2009 Keith Floyd. To order a copy (p&p free) for £17.10, call 0845 155 0720.