While the unstoppable Rolling Stones launch their latest US-stadium tour in April, the band's founding bass-player and archivist Bill Wyman, 87, will be enjoying the more sedate charms of his 15th-century manor house near Bury St Edmunds.
In 1993, Wyman had the good grace to leave the Stones voluntarily – one of only two men to do so in the group's history.
He had forged a 30-year partnership with Charlie Watts as the most unobtrusive but reliably solid rhythm section in rock-music history.
With his Buster Keaton stoneface, Bill fell into the comically deadpan school of rockers. By his own admission, he was also the Stone who did the fewest drugs and had the most sex. Wyman's love life attracted some harrumphing tabloid coverage later in the 1980s when, aged 52, he married 18-year-old Mandy Smith, whom
