JOHN CLEESE The day I met the real Basil Fawlty

Before Fawlty Towers was born, John Cleese and the Monty Python crew spent a few very odd days in a hotel that was overseen by an eccentric real-life Basil Fawlty. John Cleese shares some of the funniest memories in this exclusive extract from his new book, Fawlty Towers: Fawlts & All, My Favourite Moments.

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I arrived in Torquay, Devon, on the afternoon of Sunday, May 10, 1970, the day before location filming began for the second series of Monty Python. I and all the Pythons and Connie Booth (we were married at the time) were booked into the Gleneagles Hotel on Asheldon Road in the Wellswood district.

Donald Sinclair [the hotel’s manager] was a former naval officer, and he had a temperament and manner that established him in my mind as the rudest man I'd ever come across in my life.

As Michael Palin described him in one of his diaries: "He seemed to view us from the start as a colossal inconvenience."

My clearest memory was of a Python group dinner on the first evening. I was mildly amused at the way Sinclair was stalking around the dining room, looking rather commanding but never actually doing anything. The Pythons were all at a long table, and as he strolled past, he suddenly stopped and stared at Terry Gilliam.

Terry was eating his steak in the American fashion. He cut up all the meat, discarded the knife, and taking the fork in his right hand, speared the meat with it. He became aware of Sinclair’s scrutiny and looked up at him. Sinclair said, with stern disapproval, “We do not eat like that in this country,” and walked off...

I don’t think I can convey just how extraordinary that was. In my entire life, I have never seen a restaurant manager reprove a guest’s table manners. And doing so by picking Terry out from a group of his companions and telling him off in a loud and clear voice was utterly breathtaking.

It was, above all, so wonderfully gratuitous. What was he hoping to achieve? He could not have done anything more inappropriate if he had struck Terry on the head with a flambéed pineapple.