Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Pop Sandie talking to ‘fortune-losing’ ex
SANDIE Shaw says she is talking to her ex Jeff Banks again – 50 years after he lost her fortune and left her living in a caravan.
Eurovision winner Sandie, 73, made huge wealth with a series of hits in the 1960s including Puppet on a String.
But Sandie lost it all after marrying fashion designer Banks, now 77, in 1968.
In a rare interview, Sandie said: “I had that old school way of thinking about marriage, like ‘stand by your man’, that sort of stuff. And I felt that when he was using all my money and losing all my money... I thought that was part of being married.
She said it was “an awful time” but adds: “It’s such a long time ago now. I really learned my strengths from there. I rebuilt every single part of my life from that time.
“The only reason I’m so amazingly happy now is because of that, because that happened to me. If it hadn’t been for that I wouldn’t be where am today.” And Sandie says despite the difficult times, she and Banks are now communicating again.
She said: “I’m even talking to my first husband now. It’s huge progress.
“We both shared a lot of sh** together – that again is a unique relationship and we know the awful sides of each other.
“So there’s nothing more to find out that’s awful. There will be no shocks any more. We were both very young, incapable of understanding what was going on, because life was like a helter skelter.” Sandie also says on Tom Watson’s Persons Of Interest podcast that pop stardom did not make her a happy teen.
She said: “I hated it then, it was awful. I was incredibly lonely, mostly because I was surrounded by men all the time. I’d go for years without seeing a woman.
“It was hard being that young and not being able to talk with anyone about anything meaningful.”