Shirley Tart talks to campaigner, entertainer and father  Bob Geldof

 

Sir Bob Geldof ahead of his visit to Shropshire this weekend The mix is potent. Passion, palpable emotion, great anger and a quite remarkable love. Sir Bob Geldof lives life like that - painfully head-on.

Talk about the starving children of Africa and he boils over with some satisfaction for what has been achieved but a far deeper grief for what has not. And a simmering fury at what is possible if the world, to put it bluntly, pulled its finger out. Bob Geldof does indeed put things very bluntly. And holds nothing back as campaigner for the rights of desperate fathers who are separated from their children.

 

Here the 52-year-old former rocker and Boomtown Rat lead singer comes into his own. He knows the total bewilderment as, within days, happy family life disappears and suddenly some distant court is telling you when - or maybe if - you can see your children. In his experience, not very often.

 

His own life with his girls and French girlfriend Jeanne, is now ordinary and robust, but Bob knows well what so many thousands of other men are feeling and are unable to deal with.

 

 

He says: "When my wife who I loved very much left me, I lost everything I valued, most of all my life with the children. When I visited, I had to knock the door that, until then, was always unlocked and opened.

"Sometimes I turned away, I couldn't go through with it. Inside is this woman you loved most and those children you love beyond life and you have to knock and ask to see them.

"It's red alert all the time. You panic, you are frightened, you don't eat or sleep and what have you done except to love your family? Those children you have brought up, worried about, slept with, cuddled and consoled all your life, and you have to arrange to see them? Get permission from a court? What's that all about?"

At this and at other points, Sir Bob is shaking with anger, flinging his hands around, eyes blazing, familiar greying mop of hair flying wildly.

While the hurt which consumed and almost destroyed him, has left its mark, the tragedy which followed is not one he would have either wished or imagined.

But with the deaths of both his wife Paula Yates and her INXS lover Michael Hutchence, he certainly showed the world, if he had to, what sort of a dad Bob Geldof is. Brilliant, absolutely brilliant.

Practically, he can wash, iron, cook and housekeep because his own mum died when he was six. Ironically, Bob was brought up by a man, his father. Emotionally, he is the best.

The girls remain at the centre of his life and now in the same house again. Fifi is 21, Peaches 15 and Pixie 13 while Bob has also adopted their step-sister Tiger Lily, daughter of Paula Yates and Hutchence, still only seven.

They are their daddy's day and night, his every waking breath. He says: "I am nothing without them. I love Tiger equally to them all, there's no doubt of that, no question of it. You panic the same, worry the same, you are proud the same, you love the same."

And he stands firmly alongside so many fathers without his resources, in his battle to dump what he sees as the iniquitous family court system.

It cost Geldof years, thousands of pounds and almost his mental health to regain his place in his children's lives. He simply believes that mums and dads should have 50 per cent of the time, share the decision making, make any necessary sacrifices and put the children first.

Distant courts "allowing" visiting rights to fathers whose children have been their world, appal him.

Bob explodes again: "In court I wasn't listened to, I was belittled, derided and they were contemptuous of me. I was warned not to say I loved my children because it's sometimes thought unhealthy.

"But why do we need the Royal Courts of Justice to decide on our lives and children? We just broke up for goodness sake."

Like most of us, he condemns violence by fathers or mothers, but thinks it is often used as an easy excuse for sidelining all dads. And he is dedicated to helping innocent fathers back into their children's lives.

He supports Fathers4Justice despite some of the ways they highlight their cause - throwing powder at the Prime Minister, dangerously climbing cranes, for example.

Bob says: "As long as they are not violent or breaking the law, they have my support."

Ironically, the Government is now roping in this dads' champion to talk the debate through and Geldof believes it will be an election issue. If he has anything to do with that, it certainly will.