Bobby Dazzler

‘CILLA Black may have the teeth and leather trousers of a woman half her age, but Hello!’s cover shot of her cradling a newborn baby in her arms still comes as a shock.

Cilla and ‘er Bobby (Mark I)

We know how in this age of high-tech wonderment a woman can have a baby at any age – it was only through want of a man with stamina and no fear of splinters that the dear old Queen Mum never got her feet in the stirrups – but Cilla having a baby still smacks of wrongness.

What would dear departed Bobby Willis have made of it, the man to whom Cilla was married for 30 years until his death not so long back?

Well, rest assured he’d have been delighted because – silly us – the young ankle (over)biter isn’t hers at all but the fruit of her son Bobby’s loins.

Yes, that’s right, Cilla’s son is called Bobby Willis – like her dearly departed Bobby, Bobby’s dad.

This oddity that smacks of a palpable lack of imagination at chez Cilla is confirmed inside Hello!, where Bobby is on hand to put an arm round mum – whom, just like ex-Bobby used to, he manages – and say how very happy he is.

And who could not look at young, bouncing Robert Maximilian Willis and smile as they realise that, although his parents prefer to call him Max, the newborn’s name seems to be more in tune with Robert Willis, or Bobby Willis for short.

This is all very confusing, none more so than for Bobby Willis’s wife, the lovely red-of-hair Fiona.

Imagine the confusion at Christmas time when the family get together for a good rousing game of Blind Date.

‘This question to Bobby No 1: Are you a) My husband back from beyond; b) my son; c) my grandson?’

Choose carefully, Cilla, there’s a romantic holiday to a fertility clinic up for grabs…’

Posted: 2nd, December 2004 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink