Des shows how older fathers can have the time of their life

While there were those impressed by his virility and his success in persuading a woman 37 years his junior to become the fourth Mrs O’Connor, it wasn’t long before the entertainer found himself being accused of the worst kind of selfishness.

O’Connor turned 80 at the start of the year and with his son Adam now seven, he has finally hit back at his critics in the pages of Hello! magazine, insisting that he has never felt better and that fatherhood has been largely responsible for his new lease of life.

“I want to be with him for as long as I can, and that’s another reason to keep myself in good shape,” he said. “I don’t have a strict health regime, but I do think you have to take good care of yourself. I’ve never drunk heavily, but I drink even less now. I exercise, but nothing too strenuous. I try to keep myself in good nick.”

When the couple announced they were expecting, O’Connor already had three children from his previous marriages and, while he admits he may get mistaken for his son’s grandfather, he’s not a man prone to sleepless nights.

“I think I’m more concerned that Adam might be concerned one day that his dad is a bit older than everybody else’s,” he said. “Happily, though, I’m not experiencing that at the moment. I had people saying I was selfish. But what’s selfish about that?

“How can you say to a woman you’ve been with for 15-odd years, ‘No, I’ve got four and we’re not having any more?’ That would be selfish.”

O’Connor is not alone. Latest research shows that more and more people are waiting longer to have children.

More than 75,000 British babies a year are born to fathers aged 40 and over – more than one in 10 of all births. Of these, 6,000 have dads aged over 50.

Rod Stewart was 60 when his youngest son, Alistair was born, Michael Douglas was 58 when wife, Catherine Zeta Jones, gave birth to their daughter Carys and earlier this year 53-year-old Paul Weller became dad to twin boys John Paul and Bowie.

However, while the growing army of older fathers may have no shortage of celebrity poster boys, there has been a deluge of research in recent years looking at the possible links between ageing fathers and health problems in babies.

A Swedish study claimed older fathers are more likely to have children with bipolar disorder, with the risk at its highest over the age of 55, while separate research by UK and US scientists claimed children born to men over 40 had a significantly higher risk of autism.

A report published by the University of Queensland three years ago also claimed that while children of older mothers performed well in a series of brainpower tests, those born to older fathers didn’t fare so well.

“We can’t get away from the fact that more and more people are delaying having children and as a society I think we are much more accepting of older fathers,” says psychologist Dr Sandra Wheatley.

“The vast majority of men who think about having a child when they are in their 50s, 60s and even older think long and hard about it. From the outside, it’s very easy to draw conclusions about someone’s motivation about having a child, but selfishness usually has very little to do with it.”

Work by the think-tank, the Fatherhood Institute, has also suggested that being both financial and emotionally secure may in fact make older men better fathers.

“Older mothers tend to be given a much harder time than older fathers, because there is still a certain amount of kudos attached to being able to have a child when you’re also claiming your pension,” says Dr Wheatley.

“There’s no reason why that should be the case. We are living longer than ever before and that inevitably means that people are thinking about having a family much later in life than they did 20 or 30 years ago.

“One of the biggest complaints you hear from younger fathers is that they spend so much time at work they miss out on their child growing up, so actually being an older dad does bring benefits.

“If someone fathers a child later in life, then part of me thinks they must have Mother Nature on their side and we should wish them luck.”

The full interview with Des O’Connor is in the current edition of Hello! magazine.