When I toured Sir David Frost's legendary Hampshire home

I only met Sir David Frost once, on a bright Sunday morning in February, but it was typical of the man that he greeted me like a long lost friend. He was selling his country residence, a gorgeous Grade II* listed Queen Anne rectory in Hampshire, and hoped that some publicity might persuade a punter to part with the property's eye-watering Ј5.25m asking price.
The irony of interviewing Sir David about his private home was not lost on the broadcaster, who died yesterday aged 74. From 1983 to 2008, he presented Through the Keyhole, a mystery tour of celebrity's houses, with Lloyd Grosman.
When we met, he quickly turned the tables with his effortless charm and was soon asking me the questions, although his inquiries were so subtle and unobtrusive - How old are my children? What sports do they play? etc - that it was only later that I realized what had happened. His interview technique always owed more to the pickpocket than the mugger.
Just ask anyone who appeared on his current affairs programme, The Frost Interview, which he fronted for the satellite television station Al Jazeera up until his death: languid, informal questions that put his interviewee at ease - only for them to be caught off guard by a killer question wrapped in the same deceptive bonhomie.
We met on a Sunday and for once Sir David was not hosting one of his legendary lunches. In the previous month, Stephen Fry and Sir Andrew and Lady Lloyd Webber had sat around the wooden table in the old school room, a large informal space dominated by a ping-pong table. Baroness Thatcher used to be a regular guest too.

telegraph