He was, by his own estimation, still just one of their fans when Mick Jagger shouted, “You can’t always get what you want.”
But now, almost fifty years after joining the Rolling Stones, Ronnie Wood can agree: “If you try once, you’ll find/get what you need.”
And that, I can tell you, is in Wood’s case… . . a boat on London’s Regent’s Canal.
As unlikely as that may sound, little can matter to the 77-year-old guitarist anymore, even though he once owned a rock star mansion near Jagger’s in Richmond, south-west London, and more recently a six-bedroom mansion in Notting. Hill.
“He says it feels like coming home,” a friend tells me.
Rolling Stones, Ronnie Wood performs at the Stones; Stones Tour ’24 Hackney Diamonds’ in Houston, Texas, April 2024
The legendary guitarist with his wife, film producer Sally Wood, at the film premiere of Napoleon
The rock ‘n’ roll legend recently purchased a canal boat in the heart of London on Regent’s Canal (File image)
‘Both his mother and father had boats moored there [on Regent’s Canal] many years ago.’
As Wood has noted, not only did his parents live on the water, but also successive generations of his family, Roma boat-dwellers, “until the 18th century,” who worked as “navigators, helmsmen or whatever.”
Although Ronnie was the first to be born on dry land – in Hillingdon, on the edge of west London – his father, born on a ship called the Antelope, never turned his back on the family heritage.
Before the war, he and his wife, Ronnie’s mother Elizabeth, who was also born on a ship, hauled timber along the canals connecting London, Stratford-upon-Avon and Manchester.
When war broke out, his father remained on the water ‘transporting raw materials for the tanks and artillery’.
In the post-war era, when the family were in Hillingdon, Wood senior ensured that young Ronnie was immersed in the family tradition.
“When I was very young, he would take me fishing on the canals and we would visit his friends on the boats,” Ronnie remembers fondly.
‘I remember the lunches in the cabin, with condensed milk. I remember the beautiful, dark smell down there, and the engines running, just driving along the canals.’
Perhaps time for Ronnie and his third wife, Sally, to take their turn in Great Canal Journeys, the Channel 4 series that once memorably starred Sir Timothy West and his wife, Prunella Scales?
Two weddings for Amber’s daughter Flora
Flora Gill appears to have taken inspiration from her mother, ex-Home Secretary Amber Rudd, who worked as ‘aristocracy coordinator’ on the 1994 classic comedy Four Weddings.
Because the journalist, 33, has walked down the aisle twice in the past two weeks.
Flora exchanged vows at Chelsea Old Town Hall, in west London, with Adam Vallance, 34, an Oxford graduate, wearing a £1,400 Bella Freud suit
Flora’s mother is ex-Home Secretary Amber Rudd, who was married to celebrated journalist AA Gill, who died in 2016 aged 62
Wearing a £1,400 Bella Freud suit, Flora exchanged vows at Chelsea Old Town Hall in west London with Oxford graduate Adam Vallance, 34.
The couple previously said “I do” last month during an unofficial ceremony in Morocco.
Flora’s father was the celebrated journalist AA Gill, who died in 2016 at the age of 62.
Flora proposed to Adam last year, later explaining, “Why did I have to give him the nod when I could give him a ring myself?”
Acting still scares me, admits child star Jane
Jane Asher started acting at the age of five in the film Mandy.
Yet she has problems learning her lines and is afraid that she is not good.
“I still get nervous when I walk on stage on a first night,” says the actress and cake maker.
Jane Asher, 78, says she still suffers from stage fright and acting ‘scares’ her
‘It’s terrifying. I worry about my performance more than ever these days. I think, ‘Am I good? Should I do things differently?’ ‘
Asher, 78, adds: ‘The whole issue of curriculum becomes more frightening as you get older. When you’re young, things stick in your head.
‘I still remember poems I learned at school, but when I learn new things now, they fall out very quickly on the other side.’
Comedian and avid swimmer Miranda Hart calls for help after she outgrows her swimsuit.
She looks a bit like the character from her sitcom Miranda and whines, “I’ve gained a lot of weight and my bosom is now the size of Spacehoppers.”
Comedian and actress Miranda Hart pictured at the 2015 Spy premiere
Hart starred in her hit BBC sitcom Miranda, which catapulted her to stardom
Hart, 51, asks for tips online, saying, “I would like a black swimsuit with a really thick built-in bra.” What are you supposed to do in this situation besides chopping the damn things off?”
Attached to!
Ex wants Petronella in jail!
A dramatic update on Petronella Wyatt’s personal life: ‘One of my exes is trying to have me arrested,’ declares the daughter of Lord (Woodrow) Wyatt, who was a confidant of the Queen Mother and Margaret Thatcher.
‘I discovered this when I received an email from the Met Police saying he was accusing me of stealing his belongings.’
She refuses to name the former lover but confirms he is not her ex, Boris Johnson.
Petronella Wyatt has revealed one of her exes is trying to have her arrested – she won’t name the former lover but confirms he is not her ex, Boris Johnson
“As he is not a British citizen, the nice police officer I spoke to said I didn’t have to do anything,” she told The Spectator.
“I was surprised until I remembered that after we broke up, my ex said, ‘I’d like to see you behind bars.’
‘I didn’t realize he meant it literally. The b*****d.”
She adds, “I have consistently forced myself to accommodate men whose teeth I should have knocked out.”
If, as George Bernard Shaw claimed, ‘it is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without another Englishman hating him’, then it is downright dangerous for the Englishman to stand in the elections in Wales and come from a 2000 acre estate in Gloucestershire.
But that is the fate of Henry Tufnell, 31, Labor candidate for Mid and South Pembrokeshire.
‘This man is not a champagne socialist; it is encrusted with diamonds,” a resident told me. “It’s hilarious to see him trying to hide his fancy accent.”
Tufnell, a lawyer who trained at £48,000 a year at Radley, says he “grew up in a farming family”.
A stark contrast to his Conservative opponent, Stephen Crabb, who was raised in a council house by his single mother.