Clement Freud, who has died at the age of 84, was a familiar face when I was growing up in the 1970s. He was a well know Liberal MP at a time when the third party had just a handful of seats. Freud was also famous as a cookery writer. But he was best known for his pet food commercials with Henry the dog.

I had an unlikely encounter with Freud in the 1990s. I was working for Eagle Star insurance in Cheltenham, and we had hired a bus to collect a group of London journalists to take them to see the Cheltenham Gold Cup horse race. Freud was loitering rather sadly by our bus, and asked if we could give him a lift to the racecourse. We happily agreed and he spent the journey talking about various restaurants in the Cotswolds, as you'd expect from a famous food writer!