Flamboyant Floyd enjoyed good life right to the end
Floyd doing what he loved most, flirting and drinking wine while cooking on TV
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Wednesday September 16 2009
Keith Floyd defied his doctors' warnings by quaffing champagne cocktails and a fine bottle of Cote du Rhone just hours before he suffered a fatal heart attack. The TV chef, whose crooked bow ties, statutory wine glass and joie de vivre endeared him to millions, tucked into a roast partridge with his partner on Monday afternoon, hours before he collapsed and died at her home in Dorset.
Friends paid tribute to the 65-year-old, who they said was the first truly popular TV personality to take the art of cooking out of the kitchen and into the streets. Rarely seen without a wine glass in his hand and famed for his four turbulent marriages, many friends expressed little surprise that the chef's final day was spent enjoying a good bottle of wine in the presence of female company. Floyd was seen arriving for lunch on Monday at the Hix Oyster and Fish House, in Lyme Regis, which is owned by Mark Hix.
"He started with a couple of Hix fixes, which are these champagne cocktails, had a few glasses of white burgundy and then had half a bottle of Cote du Rhone which he and his lady friend took with them to finish elsewhere. He ordered grouse and the boys delivered him partridge by mistake; though I think he saw the funny side," Mr Hix said.
Floyd was visiting the restaurant to celebrate his partner Celia Martin's birthday. The pair later returned to her nearby home to watch Floyd's last television appearance, 'Keith meets Keith', where the flamboyant chef reminisced about his long career with the actor Keith Allen and had an emotional reunion with his daughter.
But he collapsed and died from a heart attack at 8.43pm, one hour before the show was broadcast.
Ms Martin said: "I'm still in shock, I feel like he is still here and I cannot get to grips with it. I'm expecting him to get out of bed any minute."
Floyd had connections with Ireland where he stayed for some time in Kinsale, Co Cork.
The chef decided to settle here in the late 1980s after falling in love with the country while filming his TV cookery show.
He eventually purchased a picturesque property overlooking an estuary near Kinsale complete with its own boathouse.
Broadcaster Derek Davis, a personal friend of Keith Floyd, expressed his sadness at the chef's passing.
"The first time I had the pleasure of meeting Keith, we spent almost an hour together after the 'Live At Three' show, having a smoke and chatting. To my surprise and delight he was genuinely pleasant and completely unaffected."
For the past decade Floyd was based in Marbella in Spain and Avignon in France where he said the lifestyle suited his health.
He had recently returned to Britain to seek chemotherapy for bowel cancer which was in remission at the time of his death.
- Jerome Taylor
