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He says he took on a lot because he wanted to stop himself meddling at BA. And like many self-made men, he has a horror of free time. Even now, he flatly denies he will scale back his work commitments.

“I’ve had quite a few approaches,” he says, then looks rather peeved when I ask if he is going to concentrate on smaller companies. “Small companies? I don’t think so.”

Marshall has always set his sights high. Brought up an only child during the war years, his father managing director of the car-rental business Daimler Hire, he was so desperate to escape bombed-out Britain that he joined the Orient shipping line at 17. Seven years later, offered a job at Hertz through a contact of his father’s, he left for America, working his way up the corporate ladder, before being headhunted by rival Avis to run its fledgling European operation. He rose to the top before returning to Britain with the Sears conglomerate.

Then Lord King made him an offer he could not refuse. He was a natural fit for BA. “He knew every major airport in the world backwards because there was an Avis desk there,” says Geoffrey Maitland-Smith, his boss at Sears. “And he has a real gift with people.”

That gift stretched to rebuilding morale at BA, which had just suffered the worst loss ever produced by an airline. “It had to recognise the importance of the marketplace and do things that customers wanted, rather than decide in a vacuum and force it down their throats,” says Marshall.

And looking back, he lists his highlights at BA: the sense of purpose among staff as the airline revived, his success at transferring the skills of consumer brand marketing to travel, his feeling that he is leaving it in good shape now, despite its recent shrinkage.

And the bad times? He cites the departure of chief executive Bob Ayling after poor results, and the recent retirement of Concorde, which he loved.

Others will point out that Marshall is more than a gregarious marketing buff. His BA was renowned for its American-style lobbying clout, aggressive competitiveness and reliance on controversial figures such as Michael Levin, a New York consultant who became the chief executive’s personal adviser, and David Burnside, the Ulsterman who ran corporate communications. Marshall, shy behind the smile, hates personal confrontations but was always happy to hire others to do the tougher stuff.

That undoubtedly contributed to the 1992 “dirty tricks” affair, when BA appeared guilty of obtaining information on Virgin Atlantic illegally and trying to besmirch its reputation. Surely he will admit now that he handled that badly? “Well it’s easy to say that we could have handled it better,” says Marshall. “Sometimes you can be faced with having to take decisions rather quickly without necessarily being in possession of all the facts.”

Rivals are less willing to forget. Virgin’s Sir Richard Branson declined to offer comment for this article — some feel that Marshall, who as chief executive at BA during the scandal always maintained he had no knowledge of what had gone on, was lucky to keep his job.

Nobody is going to mention that next week, when Marshall has a modest set of events inside BA to attend. Presentations will be made, goodbyes said, and a gift is under wraps. Marshall, as a man with no hobbies bar the occasional game of tennis, is famously hard to buy for.

Perhaps a small bit of Concorde for his Cotswolds garden? Or maybe a seat for life at Arsenal? He saw his first match in 1944, and has been going regularly ever since, sitting with his daughter. Even as Lord Marshall of Knightsbridge — his chosen title — his common touch can surprise.

That won’t stop him accepting first-class BA seats whenever he wants them, a likely perk in perpetuity. “But he is not the kind of guy who is going to be wasting his time, swanning round the world, is he?” says Eddington.

He has a point. Marshall, with other directorships to fall back on, hopes to remain too busy for that.