A strange sort of relationship I built up with Michael Winner, starting from a point where I detested him and his apparent hubris, envied him his way of life and particularly his relationship with the gorgeous Jenny Seagrove, then came to admire him because he revealed strengths of character and an unexpected (and well-hidden) modesty that were very appealing.

I met him only once; I wrote to him several times; I received two direct replies from him and a couple more through the Winner's Dinners columns of the Sunday Times colour supplement magazine.

Our meeting was by chance near the outside pool of the Cipriani Hotel in Venice.  I approached him and introduced myself by reference to an exchange of correspondence we had had about Charles Bronson.  He was very abrupt and I was embarrassed.  But, on reflection, I think this possibly reflected his own embarrassment, rather than deliberate rudeness.  Indeed, if there was any rudeness, it was on my part for the way in which I approached him.

Many years later I had occasion to write him about certain remarks he had made about Jim Sherwood - whose Orient Express Hotels Group were the owners of the Cipriani.  This - significantly - was the only communication that he ignored, both directly and through the newspaper columns.  And lost me a wager.  I had bet a friend, some years previous to this, that I had so penetrated the psyche of Mr Winner that I could guarantee he would respond to any letter I sent him, or publish it in his newspaper column.  Four times I had made my point.  This was the fifth time and I lost!

The first occasion was when he ran a story in his column about a meeting he had had with his great friend Charles Bronson.  In it he referred to the wonderful "ex Mrs Bronson".  I wrote rebuking "one whose command of the English language I have always admired" in using an expression that suggested the Bronsons had divorced, when he really should have referred to the "late Mrs Bronson".  His apology came without delay, and was repeated in the following week's column in the Sunday Times.

He was clearly very proud of, and defensive about, both his erudition and his relationship with celebrities.  I knew I had the key that would unlock his "response door".  A few weeks later someone wrote a letter about a problem she had had with an order for tarte tatin that arrived with some unacceptable accompaniment.  I suggested that she might adopt the method chosen by "Michael's dear friend" Jack Nicholson in Five Easy Pieces where, in a diner, he told the waiter to "hold this, hold that, etc. etc. and dispose of the remainder up his nether orifice" (my words . . . I don't recall the precise instructions").  Suffice it to say that it was promptly published together with a suitable reference to the movie and to "his dear friend".

And so it went.  Every time.  Until he failed to acknowledge my criticism of something he had written about my ex-boss Jim Sherwood (q.v.), where I referred to my having met him at the Cipriani some years earlier.  I decided that "enough was enough".  And that was the last time I wrote to him.

But he was really a "dear old codger" and I'm sad that he is now the ex-correspondent and the late-Michael Winner.