HAPPY DAYS BEING STONED

1979. But by the time we’d moved in 1982 and I had Tyrone, I still liked having a party but not a mad one.

“We settled for five years but it was too dangerous. One night these guys smashed the car in front of the house while Ronnie was in the studio. It was time to come home.”

In England, the children went to school but Jo took them on the Stones’ 1990 tour. “I got a tutor. It was great to keep the family together.” The book has a whole chapter about the children on tour.

“We’d all sit down and watch TV, and the next day they would watch the rehearsal. The kids would play in front of the stage while the boys were playing.

“Jerry Hall was there with her children, Patti with hers.”

Talking to Jo, you can’t help but get a sense of this extended family which has endured, held together, she says, by a “love of music”.

Despite her split from Ronnie in 2008, when he “ran off” with waitress Katia Ivanova, Jo says they still “have a bond”.

“I forgave him a long time ago. Our time was up, we were together 31 years. We get on well and I love his twin girls.”

For Jo, the book celebrates her life with Ronnie and the Stones. She says: “This is a thank you for the times that I had. They were fun times, amazing times, lucky-i-survived times, but they weren’t dark.

“I’m very fortunate to have been on the road with the Stones, hanging out backstage, staying up all night, being silly. Stoned is like an Instagram of the 70s and 80s. We were a group of friends having an amazing time.

“I’m lucky I survived, a lot of people didn’t. It was a mad time but I was young enough to deal with the madness.”

● Stoned (Cassell, £20)