‘It seemed to me that Tony was suffering’

Sir Cliff Richard has sold his palatial home on the St George’s Hill estate in Weybridge, Surrey, but the entertainer is not forsaking Britain for America, as you might have heard, but merely downsizing. Indeed, he has already put in an offer for a smaller place scarcely 20 minutes away.

At 65, Sir Cliff is at an age when most men have completed the metamorphosis into a fully formed Victor Meldrew and are only too happy to talk about the sense of despair they feel for their country and its people. The traditional next stage is migration to Spain — or anywhere else in the world but Britain — where disgruntled expats are wont to gather and moan and talk about the way things were.

What I find extraordinary about Sir Cliff is that he has become an old-age pensioner with not just his youthful good looks but also his youthful spirit intact.