I know some people think it’s ridiculous but Ronnie will be a truly fantastic dad
Ronnie Wood’s wife Sally on the imminent arrival of her twins with the 68-year-old
RONNIE WOOD doesn’t give a Jumpin’ Jack Flash if every TV personality on the planet thinks he’s selfish for becoming a father at the grand old age of 68. He’s cock-a-hoop. ‘I’m a believer in letting life unfold. I’m very lucky,’ says the irrepressible rocker who famously spent £20million snorting, injecting and drinking goodness knows what but survived.
‘It’s like: “Hang on. Somebody up there likes me.” I’ve been sober six years and I’m seeing things for the first time with clarity. It’s amazing. Life gets clearer all the time and this is a blessing.’
‘This’ is his wife Sally’s impressive baby bump. The 38-year-old actress and theatre producer is expecting twin girls in less than a fortnight.
When the pregnancy was first announced six months ago, the couple stood accused by some — notably the audacious and, some might say, hypocritical Katie Price on Loose Women — of being selfish. Sally was understandably hurt.
‘I had the telly on in the background and heard them say: “Is it selfish for men to have children later on in life?” I thought, “That has got to be about us.” Then I heard Katie Price laying into us both. I was really surprised to see someone I don’t know and have never thought badly of, who gets so much negativity directed at her, be so judgmental about someone she’s never met.
‘It was a cheap shot.’ Gesturing to her bump she adds: ‘I do accept this is a shock to some people and ridiculous to others, but these children are loved. There are other children being born to younger people who aren’t loved. Which do you prefer?’
As if on cue, one of the twins gives her a jolly good kick. ‘They’re on the go all the time,’ says Sally as she receives another kick. ‘There, did you see that one? It’s crazy isn’t it? But then . . .’ She looks askance at Ronnie in a what-else-can-you-expect sort of way.
‘Upper and Lower Deck I call them because in the early scans they were on top of each other like bunk beds,’ he says. ‘Keith [Richards] calls them This and That. “How’s This and That?” he’ll say. I prefer the Ronettes,’ Ronnie laughs like a drain.
We are sitting in the top-floor cafe of an antiques emporium near their Berkhamsted home. Ronnie loves to spend and collect things. He shows Sally a vintage coat hook he’s just discovered downstairs.
‘Look, I’ve found this for their school coats and, here, let me show you this cabinet.’ He scrolls through his iPhone to find a picture of the item. ‘We can hang their little frocks in there.’
Needless to say, Ronnie, who has four grown-up children from his two previous marriages, is determined to be a hands-on father.
‘I’m joining the ranks of Picasso, Robert De Niro and Charlie Chaplin who all had babies at 68. I don’t care what other people think,’ he says.
Sally massages her bump. ‘If the children are so wanted, which they are, surely that’s what matters?’ ‘And Clint Eastwood,’ says Ronnie. ‘Did he have one at 68?’ she asks. ‘Yup, or thereabouts’ he says, before giving This and That a pat and dashing off to seek out more treasures.
‘I think if Ronnie had said: “I definitely don’t want any more children,” I’d have said: “OK.” But he never did,’ says Sally. ‘These babies are very much planned.
‘Lots of our friends who are older have children — people like Penny and Rod [Stewart] — and they say: “It’s fantastic, the best thing ever. It keeps you young.” ’
But, however young he appears — for, make no mistake about it, Ronnie has the energy of a man half his age — simple mathematics dictates that, when the girls are celebrating their 21st birthdays, Ronnie will be approaching 90. And as for walking them down the aisle . . .
‘We do speak about things like that,’ says Sally. ‘It’s not the age gap itself, it’s just the reality of what those 30 years mean. You never want to think about it but it is the reality of what happens in a normal life cycle.’
Does the thought of being here without Ronnie frighten her? ‘Absolutely,’ she says. ‘It terrifies me. I...’ She stops. Swallows. Fights to hold back tears. ‘I can’t really think about it. It’s . . . Have you got a tissue?’
Sally confesses she cries at the drop of a hat in these final days of her pregnancy, but this is something that goes deeper.
SHE continues: ‘It does terrify me because I would like to think we go on for ever, but we don’t. But then you think: “Some people have great genes and live to great ages. Other people have devastating things happen when they’re far too young. It’s a lottery.”
‘But people don’t live to be 110, they just don’t. No matter who you are.’ Sally dries her eyes. Fiddles with the heart-shaped ruby necklace Ronnie designed for her after she accepted his October 2012 marriage proposal.
The stone is engraved with ‘YES SW’ and she has worn it ever since. Similarly, she keeps each of the letters he has written her and his many sketches of her from the various stages of her pregnancy.
‘He leaves them by the side of the bed with a note for when I wake up,’ she says. ‘Or, when we were apart during the band’s South American tour for two months earlier in the year because of the Zika virus risk [an infection that can have devastating effects on unborn babies] he’d draw them from memory in the middle of the night and email them to me.
‘We’d only spent four days apart in the time we’d been together so I didn’t enjoy that. Neither did he. If I don’t have all the time in the world to be with Ronnie, I’d rather spend every moment with him while I can.’
They bought a cot only two days ago and, as for the nursery: ‘We don’t have that idyllic nursery that’s been prepared for months. It’s now got a cot in it and, by the looks of things it’ll soon have a cabinet,’ she laughs.
‘Having babies has all been done before. There’s no need to get hysterical and go mad buying things.’
Sally is no gold-digger. Her parents, Colin Humphreys, a cellist, and Alison, a flautist, who both performed with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, always impressed upon Sally and her brother and sister the importance of working hard and of treating others with respect.
After leaving King Edward VI Grammar School in Handsworth, where she was head girl and member of the Central Television Workshop, she moved to London to study acting at the respected Mountview Theatre School.
BY THE time she married Ronnie in December 2012, she was running her own production company based in the West End with credits including the award-winning The Rubenstein Kiss, Touched . . . Like A Virgin, starring Sadie Frost, Men Are From Venus, Women Are From Mars and the Live At The Ambassadors concerts.
She’s handed over most of her work projects to a co-producer, other than her job on the board of trustees at the Roundhouse Theatre, but fully intends to pick them up again and also hopes to return to acting.
‘I wasn’t someone who was looking to get married and have babies,’ she says. ‘It wasn’t that I didn’t want it, it just wasn’t something I sought.
‘I’d love to produce a play that transfers to Broadway, I’d love to be in a TV drama or the West End. But for now Ronnie wants me with him and I want to be with him. It’ll probably be even harder to think about with the twins but...’ She pauses. Rubs her bump.
‘You know something? Sometimes I think I’m acting every day. You have to say “hi” and,’ she flashes a sweet smile. ‘But it isn’t how you feel inside. You’ve got a lot of people judging you. So, you have to pretend it’s fine, but it’s not fine.’
Sally was working at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane more than a decade ago where Ronnie — an artist whose paintings sell for as much as £300,000 — was exhibiting his work when they first met. He was married, at the time, to his second wife Jo.
Then in 2008 he was no longer married but partying publicly with waitresses and shop assistants. Whenever Ronnie was single, Sally seemed to have a boyfriend of her own.
‘Over the years we became very close. I don’t drink so I was always someone for him to chat to when he was sober. I’ve seen all aspects of him — being sober and not being sober.
‘He is vulnerable because he’s so lovely to everybody and you see people take advantage of that — even more so when someone’s drinking.
‘He’s been sober now for six years and he works very hard at it. Well, we both do. We go to AA meetings and he has his meditation books. It’s one day at a time.
‘But life has changed a lot. The parties are not the same. It’s the same group of people but everyone’s changed. People aren’t drinking or taking drugs any more.’
These ‘people’ include Rod Stewart, Paul Weller, Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Mick Jagger and just about anyone who was making rock history a good decade before Sally was born.
‘The age gap was a problem for me in the beginning,’ she says. ‘But I suppose that began to change when I spent a night dancing with Ronnie for the first time.’ Where? ‘Paul and Nancy’s [McCartney and Shevell] wedding [in October 2011] which is a huge name drop, so that’s a bit embarrassing. He was completely sober. We stayed until 4am and we were dancing. He’s quite good at it — of course. I thought, “OK...” I saw a real fun side of him.
‘In my mind now there’s nothing about him that says: “I am 68.” He’s talented, funny and kind. We clicked
in a way I hadn’t clicked with anyone before. I remember walking down the road with other boyfriends and thinking, although everything on paper looks right and they’re lovely, this can’t be it?’
Matters came to a head in February 2012 when Sally learned a Sunday newspaper was about to publish the story of her relationship with Ronnie.
Sally rang him. ‘I said: “Can I come over and see you?” Ronnie was waiting at the door. I thought: “This is the man I really care for in my heart.” So I knew.’
How did his children react? Ronnie has a son, Jesse, with his first wife, the late Krissy Findlay, a son Tyrone and daughter Leah with Jo and adopted son Jamie from Jo’s earlier marriage. Only Leah, 37 and Tyrone, 33, are younger than Sally.
‘They’re all really lovely and his grandchildren [there are ten] are so gorgeous. Although I’m sure it was hard for them in the beginning as I’m sure it would be hard for me if the situation was reversed, now we are forever dropping in on each other.
‘Leah and Jack [MacDonald] were here just the other day and we are seeing Tyrone tomorrow. Jesse and Fearne [Cotton] have just had their second baby Honey so they’ve sent us lots of baby bits.’
What about her parents? They are, after all, as she says ‘a whisker’ older and younger than Ronnie.
‘My parents are very cool it would seem,’ she giggles. ‘My dad said: “It’s your life. You live it how you want. You don’t have to ask my permission.” ’
But, as it turns out, Ronnie did. Sally was with her parents in Ronnie’s London art studio in October 2012 when he asked for their daughter’s hand in marriage.
‘ “I want her to be Mrs Wood. Is that OK with you?” he asked Mum and Dad. They were really pleased. My dad pretended he wasn’t being emotional and said he’d got something in his eye, so I knew they were really happy. They’re really close to Ronnie. He calls them Mum and Dad.’
They married three months later at the Dorchester with just 35 guests and Sir Paul McCartney and Rod Stewart as best men. Ronnie read his bride the poem I Belong In Your Arms by Deborah Bridea. It ends: ‘This place is filled with happiness and laughter/Yet it is spacious enough, to allow me/The freedom to move around,/To live my life and be myself./This wonderful place, which I never believed really existed,/ I have found finally/Inside your arms, Inside your heart, inside your love.’
Needless to say, there was barely a dry eye in the room. There isn’t now. ‘There are two versions of Ronnie,’ she says, mopping her eyes again. ‘There’s the one who is being written about in some hell-raising way and then there’s actual Ronnie who’s romantic, so very caring and doesn’t have a nasty bone in his body.’
With which Ronnie comes to fetch Sally. He’s found a two-seater tricycle, which he wants her to see.
‘You all right, you two?’ He addresses her bump. A little limb presses against her belly and his lived-in face melts.
‘I’m lucky on every score, aren’t I?’