I was assistant district administrator at St Thomas' hospital in London in the mid 1980s, when Michael Winner approached us for permission to use the old Lambeth hospital site as a location for Death Wish 3. The hospital had closed, though the nurses home was still in use, and we were planning a community care centre for part of the site, so its future was in limbo.
I approached an old friend, Roger Stalley, a fellow of Trinity College Dublin, to find out how much Trinity had been paid for allowing filming of Educating Rita. I asked Winner for half that amount, to reflect the different circumstances. He was outraged and told me later that he phoned Lewis Gilbert, producer and director of Educating Rita, to berate him for overpaying. Nevertheless, Winner eventually agreed to the fee, due to the excellent negotiating skills of Helen Peston, the hospital's head of communications, and indeed added an extra £2,000 to upgrade the dining room in the nurses home, to include the Winner wine bar.