Crooner Engelbert Humperdinck's wife PATRICIA is amazed their 40-year marriage has survived his numerous affairs and illegitimate children.

Patricia has spoken for the first time about her horror when she discovered Engelbert had a four-year-old child with another woman when she had just given birth to her first child, but his subsequent affairs weren't such a shock to her when she realised his drinking problem contributed to his scandalous behaviour.

She explains, "After the initial shock of that first one, the other things that popped up along the way didn't bother me the same way.

"DIANE VINCENT upset me because I had just come out of hospital with my lovely new baby. It was right then, when the papers pictures me holding my lovely baby on 25 March 1974, that she chose to tell her story.

"By then her child was already four-years-old and I started to fell sorry for it, if it was indeed Engelbert's. It was all very difficult of course, and I cried when he told me about it.

"Obviously a lot of the claims from different girls were fabricated. It just goes to show how drink can take over."

18/10/2004 14:21