I wish I'd been allowed to marry and have kids like today's pop stars...

SIR CLIFF Richard regrets that he was never married and says that he is envious of pop stars who have families.

- Tony Whitfield

Sir Cliff, 80, was making his second appearance as a castaway on Desert Island Discs and said when he started out in the 1950s it was expected that stars were single.

And when the hits kept rolling in, the drive and focus he inherited from his father meant he always put his career first.

He told host Lauren Lav erne: “People have been married and sang, and now it does not have anything near the effect it would have had when I started in the 1950s.

“It was just the way it was. People would say, all the girls are now squealing at you, so you have got to be available to them.” He recalled after a concert in north London, his then girlfriend was sitting on his lap as he waved to fans as they drove off. But the fans responded by stamping on the programmes in the gutter.