Andy Bird remembers clearly the moment his girlfriend Madonna first set eyes on Guy Ritchie. There was, he notes carefully, a 'chemistry' between them. Ironically it is the very word he uses to describe the start of their own extraordinary love affair, just a year before.

Bird, an unassuming and virtually penniless Englishman, who was scratching out a living as an aspiring film screenwriter, had been introduced to her through a mutual friend. A sexual spark was struck, and he suddenly found himself the boyfriend of the most famous woman on the planet. It was one of the most unexpected but tumultuous affairs of Madonna's amazing life.

As we have already seen, in this series, she was carrying Andy's child within three months. But although he stirred profound feelings in the singer touching her more deeply than previous celebrity lovers such as Warren Beatty and John Kennedy Jr, Andy was unable to cope with the constant blaze off publicity in which she lived. Uncertain of their future together Madonna aborted their child. And by the time she met Ritchie in the summer of 1998 she and Andy were living apart. Madonna was in the US with her daughter Lourdes (known as Lola), promoting her album Ray Of Light. Andy was in London, resuming his bohemian life in Notting Hill. His first job when he returned was to work on the door of his old haunt, the Met Bar in Mayfair, not surprisingly, the fact that Madonna's boyfriend was working as a glorified bouncer instantly made the papers.

'I was flat broke.' he explains shrugging apologetically 'The manager was one of my friends, and I needed the money.' His relationship with Madonna continued in long, fraught phone calls and letters in which they tried to make amends for the rows. 'It's Mother's Day, and I have just put Lola to sleep,' wrote Madonna in one typical letter. 'The past few hours I've been distracted with thoughts of you and our last conversation. 'I hate to fight with you especially around Lola. I hate it when you call me names. The whole time we argue, all I really want to say to you is that I wish you were here and I was looking to your eyes. 'It's been so long since we've seen each other - and nothing would make me happier. But we never seem to get to tenderness because you we still so angry with me. You save your tender words for Lola and it hurts me so.' Both of them feIt anxious and insecure.

When the newspapers discovered that Andy was back in London, they labelled him 'broken-hearted Andy Bird' and were quick to speculate that Madonna had moved on to other men. Andy says: 'I read one report that Robbie Williams had been having dinner with her. In fact, it was all down to some over-zealous public relations person, met they'd never even met. 'But when you're on the other side of the Atlantic, you think: 'What the hell are you doing?' It would frustrate her that I would suddenly start quizzing her about stuff in the papers.' Madonna had questions of her own. 'She knew I'd recovered if not all then certainly some of my anonymity. To a certain extent I could run around and do what I wanted to do. If I'd have wanted to have an affair, I could have done. 'There was hostility on her side.' How would I know if you were doing anything?'she would say. It wasn't really jealousy, but it was definitely uncertainty.' Did they stay faithful to one another? 'I can only speak for myself,' says Andy. 'But yes, I did. The trust in the relationship had pretty much disappeared by then, but not because we'd started having other relationships. It's just that when you're arguing all the time, you do lose your trust.'

Despite the tensions, neither was prepared to give up on each other - or as Andy puts it, 'concede defeat.' Almost every other weekend he would fly to the U.S. 'I'd spend two or three days In New York, then fly back to London for a couple of weeks. It sounds glamorous but it wasn't at all. It was actually quite laborious. 'We couldn't really communicate. By the time we'd be getting used to being with one another again, it would be time for me to leave. 'Madonna was still very helpful, she paid for the flights far more regularly than I did. But you have to be very solid to continue a long-distance relationship and our foundations were really non-existent.'

At times, the affair seems to have descended into farce. 'There was always an issue about how smelly my feet were, especially when I was travelling backwards and forwards to New York. When I got to her apartment and took my shoes off, Lola would be going, 'Pooh! Stinky Andrew!' Madonna used to make me wash my feet before I got into bed, with hydrogen peroxide, which Americana use as antiseptic.

'Her apartment in New York had a balcony overlooking Central Park, with a big urn on it. Once. I ran out there in my stockinged feet to have a cigarette, and took my socks off and put them in the urn. 'I got a call from her three weeks later saying Lola had been pointing at this urn saying "Stinky Andrew" because she'd found my socks. That kind of thing was very funny. But I think I as beginning to stretch Madonna's sense of humour somewhat.'

Yet - remarkably, perhaps - a deep well of affection remained as Madonna's letters show. 'We haven't spoken for a week and it makes me very sad, but there's nothing I can do, so I'm sending you this note and some music I'd like you to listen to,' she wrote after one argument. 'I think of you so often when I listen to music. I feel it's the one thing we have that has not been tainted is a love of good music. 'You have a very good ear. The fact is there is nothing you wouldn't be good at, given the right circumstances. I've said it before and I'll say it again, you have so much talent and creativity inside you. It just needs to be manifested. 'You have so much to offer the universe I look forward to seeing into your heart. You are still so deeply embedded in my heart.'

Sometimes she would send Andy touching presents. 'After one bout of arguing, she put together a lovely little parcel for me, with a scented candle, some magazines, a little picture Lola had drawn, a letter and a CD,' he remembers. 'Occasionally, she would send money. That would make me feel pretty rough, and I'd invariably give it away. But I suppose she wanted to help and show she cared.'

For weeks the relationship waxed and waned. 'Just when I thought I couldn't take any more, something would happen to give us breathing space for the next round. She'd write me letters and I'd write to her. 'We'd be breaking up all the time, maybe not talking for a few days. Then we'd call each other up, or send long faxes. There was never a point when it really ended.'

This was the stormy, uncertain background against which Madonna first met Guy Ritchie another handsome Englishman, also involved in film-making, although with rather more success than Andy Bird. The singer had come to London for work, and had been invited to a barbecue at the Wiltshire home of Sting and his wife Trudi Styler. Trudi was a close friend of Madonna and was also involved in Ritchie's new film, Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels.

For Andy and Madonna's, the day of the barbecue had started badly. She was keen for him to come with her, while he wanted to see some of his friends. 'I was heading home after seeing her at her hotel when she rang me on the mobile, asking if I was sure I didn't want to go,' he remembers. 'I wasn't keen because I was still wearing the clothes I'd had on the night before and was hardly dressed for barbecue, but I agreed to go with her. 'Her chauffeured Mercedes people-carrier picked me up on Pack Lane and I just jumped in next to the driver. Madonna - who was in the back with one of her assistants and Lola - interpreted this as a snub. 'It wasn't meant that way at all - but things went downhill from there. By the time we got to the party we were hardly speaking to each other.

'Trudi introduced us both to Guy and I could see a chemistry between him and Madonna. They looked good together - they kind of fitted. There was an instant interest and they started chatting straight away.' When they all sat down for dinner Madonna wanted Andy to sit next to her. Instead, he sat at the other end of the table with Lola. At least sitting next to Lola, I knew we wouldn't have an argument. Madonna ended up sitting next to Guy and they seemed to be getting on really well. Surprisingly, perhaps, Andy insists he felt no jealousy. 'There didn't seem to be anything to be jealous about. I'd seen that they'd hit it off at the start but now they were just two people at a party, chatting away like everyone else.

To this day, Andy insists that he knows nothing of how Madonna's relationship with Ritchie developed over the following months. But by March 1999, when he next met Guy, his own relationship with Madonna was over and Ritchie had very obviously taken his place. Their chance encounter at the Met Bar was to generate sensational headlines suggesting Ritchie had flattened his supposed rival in an ugly brawl. But that's not how Andy Bird remembers it. 'I was there with friend, and he was, too,' Andy says. 'We ended up having a chat. It was very loud and we went to have a talk about things in the lobby, which was quieter. 'I suppose I was saying 'no hard feelings', which was obviously a one-sided sentiment. Probably I said something derogatory about her, or about her life. Whatever it was, he suddenly pushed me over. 'It was out I nowhere - I was sitting on a chair and he pushed me off. But it wasn't the big brawl that some people have claimed.' Wisely, Andy did not respond and returned to the bar, while the doormen threw Ritchie out.

Why, though, did Guy react so violently? Perhaps he saw Andy as a threat, or at least a thorn in his side. Bird remains mystified by the scuffle, but refuses to speak harshly of the man who displaced him in Madonna's affections. 'Who knows what Madonna might have told him about me?' he says. 'But it wasn't like I was standing in his way. I wasn't in touch with Madonna by this stage and I don't think I even had her phone number. 'He clearly had - and has - very strong feelings for her. He'd had a drop to drink, and love can make you do silly things,' Possibly, Ritchie was simply aware of how intensely his girlfriend still cared for Andy.

In the months after Guy and Madonna met, she had continued to see Andy regularly. For her 40th birthday in August 1998 - not long after her first meeting with Guy it was Andy whom she flew but to be at her side. 'I went over to New York for a week and we had a couple of days together at her apartment,' Andy remembers. 'Then she chartered a small sea-place to take us from Manhattan to this gross Hugh Hefner-style mansion in the Hamptons that she had hired for her birthday. 'There were the two of us, her brother Christopher, her assistant, plus Lola, the nanny and a couple of friends. Then we were joined by about 30 people at the mansion and we had a lovely dinner party. 'We played silly party games and everyone seemed to have a great time. Her masseuse came along and gave everyone massages as her present to Madonna. 'After dinner, we went into this huge cinema that was in the mansion and watched the new film of The Avengers. But it was so awful that I went off into the video library and came back with In The Heat Of The Night, with Sidney Poitier, which everyone enjoyed.' At the time, Madonna was deeply influenced by Memoirs Of A Geisha. Arthur Golden's compelling novel about the eroticism and exploitation of a Japanese geisha.

Back in London, Andy had bought an antique kimono for Madonna and a smaller one for Lola. 'I also got a huge chunk of silvercoloured metal and, with a friend of mine, carved her out a huge silver heart, which I took over for her. It must have weighed more than a house brick and she seemed to appreciate it. 'But we still had an argument, even on her birthday. I wasn't feeling well and kept disappearing to throw up, and she accused me of being ill on purpose to spoil her birthday.'

For months the arguments dragged on. 'One of us would slam the phone down and ring back just to slam it down again,' says Andy. 'She changed her numbers, I changed mine. It was almost like a competition, neither of us wanted to admit defeat. Neither of us was very good at saying sorry and we would never admit to being in the wrong.' For Madonna, Andy's whole approach to life was the easy-going, impulsive style that had helped bring them together in the first place - was wearing thin. 'I'm irresponsible in fundamental ways, which did become an issue' he concedes. It was about whether I could say to Madonna: 'I can look after you.' That was important, Madonna may have grown up looking after herself and everyone else around her, but I think she does want to be looked after. 'Not looked after financially, necessarily - that would be a daunting task. But to have someone who at least contributes to the household, who organises things, takes responsibility for things. 'Even if you can look after yourself particularly well, as she can, you want that.'

Certainly, Madonna had always been frustrated by Bird's laid back attitude to his career. In Guy Ritchie she found a man whose ambition matched her own.' But it was also a matter of emotional commitment. The truth is, with seven years between them, Andy and Madonna may simply have wanted different things. 'I think she was looking for a caring, stable relationship. I know she wanted another child, but I knew that I wasn't ready to become a parent.'

Had fate run a little differently, it is conceivable that Madonna could have ended up marrying Andy Bird rather than Guy Ritchie. But Andy remains sceptical - even if they'd had a child, he says, it would not have made a difference. 'We would still have broken up. There were serious difficulties. Having a child wouldn't have changed our personalities, it ought have made us a little less headstrong but I don't think, ultimately, we would have stayed together. The relationship might just have lasted a little longer, that's all.'

Indeed, looking back, he is unsure how deep their feelings really were. 'In hindsight I'd have to look deep inside me to say we fell in love. 'It's very difficult to quantify those feelings when you're in the moment, whether it's infatuation, or desire, or love. But I don't really think we were in love.' It's a difficult claim to accept when you look back at Madonna's letters to Andy, where she talks of a love she describes as 'profound and immense' add tells him, 'I will never get over you.' The evidence, indeed, appears to entirely contradict his self-effacing verdict. But then, even though he has chosen to tell his story, Bird is a touchingly diffident man, determined not to exaggerate his role in Madonna's life.

In July 1999, over two evenings, they saw each other for the final time. Madonna had flown to London and was staying at the exclusive private members' club, Home House. Out of the blue she phoned Bird and invited him over, after seeing Guy Ritchie earlier that evening. 'I don't know why we saw each other then,' Andy says. 'Maybe it was just so that we could, in some kind of way, say our goodbyes to each other. The chemistry was no longer there. 'The anger still flared up because we are a couple of fighters, but our feelings had changed. The passion that had been there at the beginning of our relationship had gone by that stage. 'We had dinner together and chatted about what we had been doing, I can't remember what our last words were that night, I remember the emotions more than the words. There was resignation and a certain amount of sorrow, but no regrets that it hadn't worked out between us. 'She's certainly not one for regrets, She's very forward-looking and positive, as you can see from what she's achieved in her life.'

Even then, Madonna could not part from Andy completely. She called him the next day and arranged to meet him for dinner at a restaurant called Bali Sugar in Notting Hill. 'We actually got on much better that time. She had just got back from staying at Donatella Versace's place on Lake Como, and she'd bought a video camera with her so I could see where she had been staying. We had a pleasant conversation and then she went back to Home House, packed and got on a plane that night. Even then, we couldn't say we would never see each other again and we spoke subsequently on the phone. 'I was supposed to go over to Miami for her birthday the following month but it was at the height of the season and I couldn't afford the £800 for the flight. 'She was saying things such as 'If you really loved me you would find the money and I was saying, if you really loved me you would understand my situation.' So we didn't see each other again. I think we were both exhausted and had finally ground each other down.'

That Christmas, Madonna wrote to him one last time. 'It was just before she and Guy announced her pregnancy, She just said 'Hi, I hope things we OK with you. Lola still mentions you occasionally. Maybe we should meet it would be nice to have a chat about things.' Andy did not respond. 'It didn't really warrant it. It was just a few words on a Christmas card. She sent it to a restaurant I used to go to, and I only got it a month and a half later.'

By then, he explains, the moment had passed: the world knew she was having a baby. 'I felt she was opening a new chapter in her life. By that stage, I definitely had as well.' How did he feel, after the loss of their own child, hearing Madonna was pregnant with another man? It didn't affect me,' he says evenly. 'By then, my head was somewhere else. Already it seemed another life. 'I did feel pleased for her. And from the little bits of information that filter through to me I understand they we very happy.'

It seems an odd coincidence that, after Andy, Madonna should go on to marry another Englishman. Andy, however says he saw little sign of a hankering for English men. 'She was married to Sean Penn and had a long relationship with Warren Beatty, and there's nothing remotely English about them. 'Since she and Guy got together, she's probably discovered quite a lot of nice things about England. But I don't think she was looking for an English husband.' While Madonna has found happiness with Ritchie - and given birth to a son Rocco - Andy has stepped back into the shadows. Today, he has another, happy relationship. He has grown up, it seems, in the past few years. Even now, his phone still rings with people wanting to talk to him about Madonna.

There have been some false suggestions that he is planning to write a book about his experiences, in fact, he hopes that by telling his story in this series, he can draw a line beneath the whole episode and get on with the rest of his life. He has, he says fervently, few regrets. I can look back and categorically say Madonna's a lovely, lovely person. But I definitely wasn't the right person for her, add she wasn't for me.' In the end, the contrasts that once seemed so alluring tore the relationship apart. Then love was at its best, an extraordinary fairy tale. Sadly, as with most real-life fairy tales, there could be no lasting happy ending.