Just a working class oik - who loves trees and writes sonnets

THE time: early morning. The place: a sumptuously furnished house in central London.

We are waiting for the publisher of Maxim, the brash British lads' magazine making inroads into the American market. And the first sign that Felix Dennis is about to make his entrance is the whiff of cigarette smoke.

'I'm not sure why I am bothering to give this interview,' barks the man recently awarded the title Smokers' Rights Champion Of The Year for condemning the anti-smoking culture. 'There is nothing much to say about a fat bloke with glasses who is 54 years old. Frankly, I would prefer not to talk about my private life...but the trouble is I can't keep my mouth shut.'

Dennis then launches into a diatribe about journalists making things up - an interesting observation from a publisher.

He relishes the gruff image. But it is hard not to like the former hippie whose firm, Dennis Publishing, is the joint largest independent magazine publisher in Britain, sharing the honours with Michael Heseltine's Haymarket.

Much of his £300 million fortune has come from exporting the thriving British 'lads' magazine idea to the US. Maxim sells 2.4 million copies a month and is the second-biggest selling magazine in America, behind Playboy.

Dennis says his US titles are set to generate revenues of £250 million in 2002, up more than 80% on last year. He has already spent £12 million launching an American version of The Week - a seven-day round-up of news and features - and introduced two other titles, Maxim Fashion and a music monthly called Blender. But no matter how much success the titles achieve, Dennis says he will never take the company public. His experience with Micro Warehouse, the American computer retailer he ran in the Eighties, seems to have put him off public companies for life - largely because he had to deal with financial analysts.

There is a special place in Dennis's heart for analysts. He describes them as 'hideous, spotty youths, who as far as I can see have never had sex in their lives. These young people rule the City with a rod of iron and tyrannise huge, grown men worth hundreds of millions of pounds.

'Whenever I spent time with them I had to stand mute because I swore to my business partner that I would never speak to an analyst without the corporate PR standing by my side - and he, as a joke, more than once toyed with a roll of tape.'

Maxim is worth £140 million. And with a large slice in one of Britain's largest magazine distributors, the sale of shares in a computer mail-order company, six homes, land in Warwickshire and investments in art, Dennis is worth £300 million.

But he is reluctant to admit he is rich. 'The amount I have to spend each year is not that great,' he says, 'but what I have in asset value, ie the company I own, is high.' But hang on, let's get some perspective here. He has six luxurious homes around the world and five luxury cars - Rolls-Royces and Bentleys.

'I own these cars because they feel more solid than others, and stick like glue to the road when I have to get out of trouble fast,' Dennis explains. 'And if we crash, they are going to die and I am not.

'Actually, I can't even drive a car - I realised a long time ago that I couldn't mess around with girls at the back of the car and watch the white lines on the road in the front. These days, I am looking out the window, reading the paper - doing all sorts of things while most other people are gripping the wheel.'

Dennis was famously jailed in 1971 for his part in editing Oz, the notorious hippie magazine. Now he admits to taking things a little more sedately. In fact, most of his time is taken up with trees and poetry.

'When I am not planting trees I am writing sonnets,' he says. 'They are classically metred, strictly rhyming poems. And unlike other modern poets - with the exception of rap artist Eminem who is one of the finest poets on the planet - I write verse which is easily understandable.

'I was inspired to put pen to paper by the death of some of my best mates. It's a generation thing caused by too much drink, sex and rock and roll.'

Dennis has written two books of poetry - A Glass Half Full and Nursery Rhymes For Modern Times: A Little Book Of Merciless Verse - to be published later this year. He will go on tour to recite his verse.

'I am sure the locals will be surprised when I helicopter into Grimsby Town Hall,' he chuckles.

Dennis's other great passion is planting trees - and lots of them. Squares of farmland in central England are being quietly procured and planted with broadleaf trees. He intends to invest £200 million to kick-start the project, which will eventually cost £1.2 billion.

'I suspect that because I am a working class oik, I will lose all my money or give it all away,' Dennis says. 'But I don't think, frankly, that old people need much money. By the time you are in your seventies, you really don't care if you have it or not.'