Wearing a black leather jacket and purple tinted glasses, he looks like the Rolling Stone of old and with a gravely drawl, which owes much to years of smoking, he even sounds like the man who spent 30 years of his life in one of the world's most famous bands. But something is not quite right –he likes, no loves, metal detecting and he's not afraid who knows it.
In the preface to his new book Bill Wyman's Treasure Islands he attempts to explain the origins of his passion, which emerged in 1991 when he was going through what he describes as "very difficult personal circumstances".
But surely the usual rock and roll answer to such tribulations would have been a large bottle of whisky and a handful of Class A drugs.
The path to self-destruction is a well-trod one, so why did Wyman, the man who during two years in the 1960s apparently recorded that he'd slept with 278 women, decide metal detecting would be his therapy?
"Archaeology was what I liked," he says curtly as though his answer is an obvious one. "But it's a very time consuming business. You can dig a hole for 30 years, but where do you stop? I'd already dug up bits of my own backyard, but wanted to be able to go out and about. Metal detecting allowed me to do that."
What he describes as his "own backyard" is in fact a manor house set in not insubstantial grounds in Suffolk. But while owning acres of land may put him one step ahead of the average metal detectorist, even during his days hanging out with Jagger, Richards and Co there were signs he would turn amateur historian.
As the band archivist, his attic houses dozens of trunks of carefully ordered memorabilia, he has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the blues and while on tour even during the Stones' heyday he insists he would head off for the nearest museum leaving the others to handle the more human and female exhibits they had picked up on route.
"When I was young, museums were stuffy place," he says. "They weren't child friendly and they always had a funny smell about them, but I still liked to go and look at the objects. I grew up with a love of history, but I always found it difficult at school because it was about learning facts and dates by rote. When I left the band I had time on my hands, time to pursue other things."
But while he may be at his happiest with a metal detector rather than a guitar in his hand and while he enjoys being immersed in history, he is keen to make sure that his own past doesn't follow him around.
Despite having built up a successful band of his own with the Rhythm Kings, ask most people who or what they associate Bill Wyman with and while the Stones may be the first response, it will be closely followed by his relationship and later short-lived marriage to Mandy Smith.
Minutes before the interview we are told in no uncertain terms that if asked anything about the Rolling Stones or indeed his personal life he will, and I quote, "get very, very mad". An interview stamped with a health warning is not the easiest of prospects, but Wyman goes some way to explaining his 'metal detecting or nothing' stance. "The media doesn't like you to do anything out of character. They didn't like it when John McEnroe had a rock band and I know because he asked me to teach them how to play bass," he laughs in a rare moment of jollity. "Everyone has a hobby outside their career, but when you're famous, suddenly you're not allowed.
"For me one of the joys of what I do is the peace and quiet. A lot of musicians go fishing, Eric (Clapton] goes fishing, so does Gary Brooker (of Procul Harum]. For me metal detecting is land fishing. It means I get some fresh air, some exercise and get away from it all."
Homespun philosophy over, it's back to conversations about the origin of field names and recommendations to subscribed to The Searcher and Treasure Hunter periodicals.
You get the impression that he talks about little else and you have wonder whether his wife feels she has become a metal detecting widow.
"On one piece of land I found 300 Roman coins and 20 little bronze brooches and numerous pieces of pottery," says Wyman, beginning a tale which will not stop despite the increasingly unsubtle interruptions from a press officer trying to speed up the proceedings.
Wyman is already late to talk to a group of fans gathered on the first floor of York's Borders bookshop. But he's on a roll. "They kept telling me there wasn't a site there," he continues. "But one day I found a strange object and it turned out to be part of a Roman lock and they had to admit that after all these years I was right. I'm never smug, but let's just say I felt quite satisfied.
"Most finds you know are accidental. You can go out one day and all you'll come back with is a couple of buttons from the 1800s, but then another day you'll come back with pockets full of stuff. In some ways, that's the beauty of metal detecting, it's out of your control."
And may be just may be, that lack of control maybe the key to his 14-year obsession.
"To be honest, I was probably a bit bizarre when I was with the band and I'm probably a bit bizarre now. But someone once said if you know from whence you came there's no limit to where you can go.
"That's why I love archaeology, that's why I'm a metal detectorist."
To order a copy of Bill Wyman's Treasure Islands (Sutton Publishing, £25) call the Yorkshire Post Bookshop free on 0800 0153232. P&P is £1.95.