Michael met the lovely Kathleen Hall when his parents moved opposite her parents' house in Cropredy. Kathleen had moved back to the village from London and was working at the Banbury Focus, a free newspaper.

Michael had an red “frog eye” sprite at the time and could often be seen cutting a dash round about town, thinking he was the epitome of cool no doubt.

Michael and Kathleen married on July 14, 1973 at All Saints' Church in Burton Dassett, near Banbury. During the early years of their marriage, the Biddulphs lived in Swansea, where Michael was a student studying social anthropology. He worked at the Western Mail in the holidays, while Kathleen was doing a graphic design course at Swansea College of Art.

One summer holiday Michael returned to the Oxford Mail for another stint of cutting edge journalism.

The pair left Swansea in 1975 and moved to Osney Island where little Matthew Biddulph was born a year later. Michael returned full-time at the Oxford Mail, even though he was offered a place to carry on his PhD at Oxford University.

Soon after, Michael's professor at Swansea University, Joe Loudon, wrote to him telling him that Matthew Biddulph was “far more important” than any offer from Oxford.

When Maddy was born on January 25 in 1978, Kathy expected a long labour after Matthew, but: “Maddy was the quickest birth. I remember thinking 'Oh my God, this is going to be another ten hours and then she appeared!'”

In 1981, Kathleen and Michael bought 113 Botley Road, Oxford, while Kathleen was pregnant with Jonny Cool, aka Jonathan James. The cat, obviously experiencing sympathy pains, decided to have kittens at the time of the move.

In the same year sometime in the autumn, Michael bought an ex-rental punt from Cherwell boathouse. He asked his friend Roger Bourgein to help him bring it back to Botley Road from the boathouse, through the Isis, the main Thames and onto Bullstake Stream.

Roger, who played his guitar along the journey, remembers the day as a surreal, magical experience as the “heroes of the hour” negotiated the river and made it safely home into the arms of an excited three-year-old Maddy, and Matthew, aged five.

Roger said: “Mike wanted someone to help him take it back so we took it in turns to row. I remember lying on my back looking at the sky, it was misty and beautiful, totally silent, so still like glass.

“We passed the old Parson's Pleasure but there was no nude bathing there that day, and past Dame's Delight. We went across submerged branches like explorers. It was amazing.

“We were enjoying it because it was a nice day. It felt like it took us the whole day but it must have only been two or three hours. Because we were alone it felt like an exploration, really magical. We got to the main course of the Thames near Folly Bridge and suddenly we were faced with huge boats and traffic on the river and Salter steamers.

“The river looked huge after being on the Cherwell with overhanging branches. It was like being on the M25 as a learner driver. But we made it across the river, we didn't know how deep it would be or if the pole would reach the bottom. It felt like a real accomplishment, like heroes of the hour, when we ended up at Botley Road. It was fantastic.”

Kathy said: “We used to have punt parties to pull the punt out every winter and re-varnish it.”

The Botley Road house provided many years of fun and much-needed space for Michael who had recently started teaching Adult Education and later Open University – not to mention room for the next two children to come along.

In the summer of 1984, in the mid-eighties, when fluorescent socks and puff ball skirts were all the rage, Rosie Biddulph was born. Kathy said: “She took hours and hours.... I got bored trying out toys in the birthing room while I was waiting. They had folded the bed away and I was sat around on the floor.

“Rosie arrived early evening about 6.30pm so Mike went and fetched the children to see her. We were still in the delivery suite before they gave Rosie her first bath. We all came in and bathed her with the midwife.

“It was one of those parent evenings for midwives having a look around the delivery suite so they all poked their head round the door and said 'isn't that lovely' when they saw us all together.”

A favourite memory of Maddy's is being pushed around the Botley Road garden in an old wheelbarrow - long before the days of Playstations and Gameboys, of course.

Rosie recalled Michael's brave attempt to rescue Treacle, the family's Burnese Mountain dog, after she escaped the house. Thinking it was all a game, Treacle made a mad dash across the shallow stream at the end of the house across into the vet's car park and dangerously near to the road. At one point Michael caught up with her and grabbed hold of her lead, only to be pulled along the pavement at a worrying pace. Eventually he returned home, dog in tow, and collapsed in the rocking chair.

Rosie said: “All I remember is seeing him being dragged down the road and coming back to the sitting room, sitting in the rocking chair with his head and wrist bleeding.”

Kathleen and Michael were together for 19 years and despite some troubled times, at least they both agreed that they were good at one thing together - bringing up children.

They divorced in 1992 and Michael turned the page to a new chapter in his life with Valerie Taylor.

Michael met brown-eyed Val while she was working for the county council as a part-time administrator for the registration service. They spent many joyful weekends away exploring England and Northern France in a little black car, so much so that Val's daughter Susie once said: “Val's spirit may be in Oxford, but it will be away at weekends.”

While they were only together for four short years they had a love strong enough to last a lifetime. Before she could say goodbye, Val died suddenly on October 11 1996, leaving a huge void in all our lives. Broken with grief Michael once tearfully told Maddy that he would never love again.

But in time, and with the help of some calculated seat planning by his friend Helen Green (then Humpries) at her wedding in October 2001, he found himself sitting next to Mary Evans.

Realising the wonder of Mary, he decided to stop drinking so he could impress her with his irrepressible charm and wit. Little did she know at the time, but the trousers he had on had several small holes in them, and he had coloured in (yes, coloured in) his own legs with black pen underneath the holes to conceal them.

Long-legged Mary, the deputy director of education for Wandsworth borough council, remembers meeting Michael before the wedding, when she bumped into Helen and him several years ago at the National theatre.

Mary said: “Neither of us can remember much about it or what we saw. As well as knowing about him through Helen I also knew Mike from Oxford through Michele, another mutual friend but hadn't realised it was the same person.

“The wedding was a glorious hot day. Helen told me she would sit me next to Mike as there were no eligible chaps apart from 'The Rotter' but she wouldn't wish him on me. She assured me I would find Michael really interesting and good company – and I did – and it wasn't just down to the flowing Champagne.

“After a wonderful afternoon and evening talking together I concluded – wrongly – that he wasn't into commitment and I assumed I would be enjoying his dry wit, quick mind and sharp tongue on the occasional Sunday in London.

“Little did I imagine then that in just a few weeks, probably after a wonderful day in Brighton, I would lose my conviction that my ideal was living alone in a separate world with a part-time weekend relationship!”

Mary's first impressions were cool (“I was the first to crack after the wedding and phone”), resourceful (“the leg colouring incident”), sentimental (“he kept the bus ticket and card with my phone number”) and able to design a beautiful house (“and clearly not gay!”)

She proved an irresistible force and it was not long before the lovestruck pair were spending hours battling up and down the motorway to see each other.

Eventually the inevitable happened and Michael kissed goodbye to Oxford and moved to Twickenham to be with the women he loved with all his heart (and his coloured in legs).

At his leaving party, friends and family gathered to wish him well, and an old friend told him Mary was “fit”, so he knew he was onto a good thing.

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