I was once nearly sent into one of HM's finest hotels. It was 12 years ago (don't mind talking about it and I openly talk about it outside here too) and I was arrested one brisk bright morning in March 1998. I'd written some letters you see to a former lover. Half a dozen in all...I'd been given a caution after the fourth one...then wrote two more. Two bright young police officers came to escort me away, read me my rights. I of course protested quietly as they tried to squeeze my large frame into the back of their noddy car; 'Since when has it become an offence to write letters?' I asked them. I told them that if writing letters was an offence then I'd expect to see hundreds of thousands if not millions up before the courts very soon. I also grumbled other comments on the short journey to the local nick; 'Are we now Nazi Germany?' I grumbled, and mentioned my fathers and forefathers whom fought for my freedom to write letters. My grumbles were met with a stony silence.

I was stripped bare of my possessions at the police station, save for the shirt on my back and my trousers...they even confiscated my shoelaces; 'I'm hardly going to hang myself with those' I told them. I grumbled some more about nazis and New Labour 'this would never have happened under Thatcher ...blah blah...' I irritated the desk sergeant quite clearly. After demanding my solicitor I was bundled into a cell. Solicitor duly arrived and two hours passed before two officers brought me out for a taped interview.

I was a shining star in the interview, even though I do say so myself. The irony, the saracasm, the wit, far outclassed my captors. I asked if Alistair Cooke had been arrested because he'd been sending letters from America for 50 years. I also told them that whilst they were busy interrogating a harmless fat letter writer like me there were probably old ladies being brutalised by thugs in their own homes. They didn't like that one bit.

More evidence came to light however. Aside from the letters I had been seen standing in the complainants back garden staring in through the French windows. The complainant said that I had followed him around Morrisons with an empty shopping trolley for 45 minutes. The latter I immediately drew issue with as I told them I wouldn't be seen dead in Morrisons. As for the French windows, that never happened either. It was clear my abductors were going to believe every word of my accuser.

Then there was the 'picnic with intent'. I allegedly had followed my victim one warm summers afternoon in 1997 and set up a picnic, with hamper, tablecloth on the grass and the works, so as to spy on him and his friend attending a wedding.

Cutting to the chase I was charged with harrassment and it went to trial. I was convicted in late October 1998 and given a suspended sentence of two years and ordered to attend meetings for alcoholism and anger management. It didn't go to Crown Court and I believe the magistrates sympathised with me, but of course the local press had a field day. They dubbed me the 'Picnic Stalker'. The fact that the picnic took place a half mile from the wedding ceremony and was dismissed by the magistrates, didn't stop wet behind the ears illiterate journos mentioning it twice in their full front page headlines.

So there you go...I'm the infamous picnic stalker that never was. I fell into a deep depression afterwards, but it was the local press who did the real damage of course.

Judge me if you will (the letters were well written and contained no threats...one letter contained some mild sexual content).

I am human. I admit I erred, but what followed was completely and totally wrong in my view. The local press loved every single minute of trying to destroy me.

I'm pleased to say they didn't succeed.

crikey, that's quite a story, FC.

Loved the Alistair Cooke line!

You must wear Picnic Stalker like a badge of honour Fat Controller..just as Vile Pervert does !

Although it must have been hard at the time.

My friend...during the Spice Girls era got busted in a toilet in Richmond after 'servicing' several men..the last a copper, and he was labelled Cottage Spice by the local rag.

Some of us people got paid to think up these headlines !

Indeed veritas and friends still refer to me as the Picnic Stalker, but in a good natured way. One woman once referred to me as ' that picnic man', when I was in a restaurant some years ago. It sort of horribly backfired on the local press as it was verging on the Pythonesque. My weapons might have included hard boiled eggs, a french stick and a punt of strawberries.

The very name hardly sends a chill down the spine does it?