Keith Floyd still owes me £200. Obviously I shall never get it now and I don't mind in the least because I've lived off that particular IOU story for the past 20 years or so.

Keith was running his restaurant Floyds in Chandos Road in Redland at the time and wanted an extension built. He needed a couple of eager lads as builders cum labourers and before I knew it, a schoolmate had co-opted me on to the team and we were helping to shape Keith's newly designed kitchen.

Even Lego was beyond me as a kid, so how this construction ever passed a health and safety check or building and fire regulations is beyond me.

I went to have a look the other day and as far as I can make out it is still standing. I had been promised £200 cash for a couple of weeks' work which, for someone who had just left school and only had some A-level retakes to look forward to, was not a bad wedge. I never saw a penny of it!

During that fortnight I did see quite a lot of Keith and his then wife Julie. They were great company. He was as you've seen him on TV, entertaining, opinionated and most certainly irreverent – even to customers – but then that was all part of his charm.

It will not surprise you to know that whatever time of day it was, there was always a bottle open. He was an incredibly generous host who cooked superb food and created a fantastic atmosphere in his restaurant. It was slightly chaotic, but always inviting and definitely very lively.

On screen he was a natural. Ramsay, Worrall-Thompson, Oliver and the rest owe their fortunes to Keith Floyd who reinvented the role of the celebrity chef.

It's clear though that while he may have been big on personality, he was small on attention to business detail.

Most, if not all, his ventures outside his television career ran into difficulty. No surprise then that I never got my wages.

And as each of his four wives no doubt would testify, coping with his excesses would probably have tested anyone's patience. Despite that I will always remember him very fondly and will be thinking about one of Bristol's great characters, and his family of course, on Wednesday this week when he is finally laid to rest.

Floyd's debt to me reminded me of two other celebrity cash stories which I'm assured are not apocryphal. The first involves Jack Charlton who, when manager of the Irish football team, was worshipped from Donegal to Cork.

Whenever Jack went into a pub with players or his family and friends he always paid by cheque, knowing that more often than not those cheques would never get cashed, but just appear a few days later framed and in pride of place on the bar!

The second concerns Kerry Packer, the Australian millionaire, who was turned away from a pub after asking for food a minute or so after the kitchen had closed. Just up the road, another pub was a little more welcoming.

After eating, he said he was going to give them a larger than average tip on the condition they went down the road to the other pub and told the staff there that they'd just made Kerry Packer some food and then inform them what he'd tipped them.

They agreed and he handed over a £5,000 cheque.