Keith Floyd

Keith Floyd was a flamboyant celebrity chef and popular television personality who had strong links with Dorset. He filmed one of his early programmes Floyd on Fish in the George Inn in South Street, Bridport. Floyd developed his own unique and eccentric presenting style, which often involved haranguing his cameraman, while he cooked with a glass of wine in his hand. However, he did not consider himself to be a chef as he had not been professionally trained.

Keith Floyd was born in Sulhamstead, near Reading in December 1943 and joined the British Army in 1963. He left after three years reckoning that he and the army were mutually incompatible. After the army, he became a dish washer, vegetable peeler and eventually a restauranteur. One of his restaurants was in the Vaucluse Department in Southern France. In 1984, he was offered his first television series Floyd on Fish. One of the scenes featured Floyd cooking on a trawler. Floyd on Food, Floyd on Great Britain and Floyd on Oz followed. There were no scripts and he add-libbed throughout. He also produced a wide array of cookery books throughout his career.

Keith Floyd married and divorced four times. Likewise, several of his restaurants were not financially successful and in 1996 he was declared bankrupt. Keith Floyd was an appalling businessman. He once said:

‘I don’t drink while I cook. I cook while I drink.’

He was both a smoker and heavy drinker and in 2002 suffered a heart attack. Keith Floyd died of a heart attack in September 2009 at the Dorset County Hospital in Dorchester. He had been taken ill in Bridport after enjoying a gourmet meal at the Lyme Regis restaurant of celebrity chef Mark Hix.

On hearing of Keith Floyd’s death, celebrity chef Marco Pierre White said of the original celebrity chef who reinvented cooking on tv:

‘He was an individual, he was a maverick, he was mercurial, he was magical, he was special, he was rare.’

Time for a quick slurp!

(Source: Keith Floyd Appreciation Society.).