KEEP ON ROCKIN'

With a UK tour this year and next, a best-of album hitting number seven in the charts and a new album due out, Tewin’s Marty Wilde is still rock n rollin’ at 80

- Sandra Deeble

When rock n roll star Marty Wilde first came to view the thatched house in Tewin that has been his home for the last 50 years, it was love at first sight.

‘I got up to the door and I felt the way I feel every time I come into this house. It’s that same feeling. Sometimes it’s quite intense and sometimes it’s quite emotional. It was one of those things. I adore this place. And I love the area. I love Hertfordshire to bits.’

This was in 1970. Marty recalls that his arrival in the quiet village probably caused a bit of a stir.

‘Some of the neighbours would have thought, “What the hell is going on?” because rock and roll singers had a certain reputation. You get an image of an incoherent tearaway.’

Yet he and his wife Joyce, a former Vernons Girls’ singer, together with their young children Ricky and Kim, loved the peace and quiet of Tewin and soon integrated into village life. Marty and Joyce went on to have two more children: Roxanne and Marty Jnr.

Music is in the Wilde DNA. Today, Kim and Ricky both live in Herts with their own families, and continue to write songs, record and perform together with Ricky’s daughter Scarlett.

Roxanne lives in London and is singing on Marty’s new album, Running Together, released at the end of the year. Roxanne was one of Kylie Minogue’s backing singers. She is now performing and touring with Clare Grogan. Marty Jnr has his own garden design company, Wildeideaz, close by in Datchworth.

Marty and Joyce now have nine grandchildren and two greatgrandchildren. The family register is now up to Marty IV. Kim’s two children, Harry and Rose, are also forging musical careers.