On television, his eccentric style of presentation – usually drinking wine as he cooked and talking to his crew – endeared him to millions of viewers worldwide.

[3] His father, from a working-class background in Solihull, West Midlands, studied electro-engineering at college until the outbreak of the Second World War, when he joined the Royal Corps of Signals; unable to continue his studies, he became (by his son's recollection) "a tailor or something of that sort", then a meter repairman for the electricity board, going on to work at the Fawley oil refinery on Southampton Water.

[4] Floyd was brought up in a council house in the small town of Wiveliscombe in Somerset, where his mother grew up; he referred to his upbringing as "a very happy rural childhood".

[5] His family made financial sacrifices to enable him to be educated privately at Wellington School, Somerset; popular and a good rugby player, he was forced to leave at 16 due to lack of money.

[6][8] After three years, finding that he and the Army were "mutually incompatible", Floyd found employment in several catering-related jobs including barman, dishwasher and vegetable peeler.

TV producer David Pritchard then offered him a slot on BBC West regional magazine show RPM, presented by Andy Batten Foster.

That led, in 1984, to his being offered his first BBC TV series Floyd on Fish, which started his rapid rise to national popularity.

He became well known for cooking with a glass of wine in one hand, often in unusual locations such as a fishing boat in rough seas.

Until his death he was actively involved in his restaurant Floyd's Brasserie, located at the Burasari Resort on the popular Thai island of Phuket.

Together, they formed a company called Walker Floyd, buying wines in Vaucluse and then driving them back to Bristol to be sold to the city's bars and restaurants.

They would then buy interesting, and carefully picked out, pieces of bric-a-brac to be driven back to Vaucluse for sale in the various markets.

In his autobiography, Floyd notes Walker's influence on him: "My approach to food, my style if you like, had developed as a result of my life in France with Paddy.

[8] In October 2002 Floyd, a smoker and a heavy drinker, was reported to have suffered a mild stroke,[20] although he denied this in his autobiography.

In November 2004 he was banned from driving for 32 months and fined £1,500 after crashing his car into another vehicle while three-and-a-half times over the legal alcohol limit.

[citation needed] He collapsed at a pub in Chesterton, Staffordshire, on 29 January 2008 and was in a coma in hospital on a life-support machine.