FOLK legend, broadcaster and professional walker Jimmie Macgregor has reached his 85th birthday.

And the tartan troubadour looks fantastic for it; he still performs, he still walks, and he still has his Tony Curtis curls.

But any notion the man's career longevity is down to his music alone is dispelled during chat in his cosy kitchen in Glasgow's West End.

Jimmie, it transpires loves the lassies. And the lassies have certainly loved him.

While he serves up tea, caramel wafers and his life story, the musician however doesn't go all Nick Clegg or Richard Madeley and resort to misogynistic boasting of bedpost notches.

Jimmie Macgregor, it's clear, simply loves women. And he just happens to have loved quite a lot of them.

"I had lots of girlfriends growing up and great fun," he recalls, "yet I had no idea I'd become a musician."

Aged 18, Springburn-born Jimmie was dragged off to do National Service, ("a pointless exercise") but the idea of becoming an artist had descended.

He sent his efforts to Glasgow School of Art and was accepted to study Ceramics.

"I had a great time at Art School," he says grinning in recall of this Bohemian world. "I was like a fox in a hen house."

In 1956 however, having bought a cheap guitar at Paddy's Market, Jimmie heard the call of the wild and hitched to London where he joined the emerging folk scene.

Yet, he still hadn't considered a career in entertainment. The original rolling stone, who had enough likeability and charisma to fill a dozen guitar cases, drifted along happily.

"I joined the Chas McDevitt Group, who went on to have a worldwide hit with Freight Train, but I didn't mind missing out because by then I'd left to join the City Ramblers, and I really fancied their washboard player Shirley Bland."

At that time, young men tended to marry their first serious girlfriend?

"Yes, especially if they tended to be a bit pregnant," he says with a wry grin.

"The marriage lasted just a couple of years because I was still racketing about in the music scene. But Shirley did give me a lovely daughter, Fiona."

The wandering minstrel floated along, playing and "racketing". And somehow, music and success knitted together faster than an Arran jumper the week before a birthday.

In 1959, young Macgregor appeared at the Vienna Youth Festival, where he was partnered with fellow Scot, Robin Hall, a relationship that lasted 21 years and produced almost as many albums.

The pair became nationally famous, thanks to their nightly appearances on BBC's The Tonight Show (the One Show of its day, but with A levels) singing the likes of Football Crazy to 10 million armchair fans.

Jimmie was now making serious money, but he didn't take his cash too seriously, or indeed worry about the precariousness of the business.

"My accountant did though. He told me to buy a house because at this time I was renting a room in Hornsey. But the landlady and I had a thing going, and it was only costing me a few quid a week. So what did I need a house for? Security?"

Thankfully, the live for the moment mentality was defeated by the insistent auditor.

The highly accommodating landlady was waved goodbye and the folk star bought a huge nine-room property in expensive Highgate. And bought into (sort of) a new relationship with a gorgeous lady called Binx.

The pair had a son Gregor (who now lives in Montreal). "That was great," says Jimmie. "But Binx looked after me too well. I felt curtailed."

Success with Robin Hall continued and the pair travelled the world, but Robin could be irascible. Indeed, Jimmie, who boxed in the Army, admits he once flattened his partner.

"He was being rude to people in a show and I decked him," he recalls shaking his head, reflecting his regret.

"I should never have done it, and the next day I apologised profusely to the cast and to Robin. Thankfully, his response was 'These things happen, Jimmie. What do you want to drink?'

Meanwhile, the partners in Macgregor's life changed as often as a Strip The Willow.

He glides over the names of the enchantresses such as Sharon, in Dublin who was 6ft tall, the Indian woman who wanted to take the Scot home to live with her, the gorgeous Dane, the wealthy women he's courted, the showbiz performers.

"I didn't really want to hold onto one woman," he says, by way of explanation rather than apology.

What he did want was to enjoy the musical journey, fuelled by the fun of meeting the next wondrous female.

Meanwhile, the folk star from Springburn proved to be a television natural with his nature series' proving to be hugely successful.

Today, Jimmie Macgregor MBE still walks as much as a cartilage-worn knee will allow and still performs on stage, (appearing at Celtic Connections this year).

He still loves the ladies but is committed to his 'fantastic' girlfriend who lives in Kilbarchan.

And he has an energy, a sheer delight in life. "I could have been stuck as a school teacher for Christ's sake," he offers, grinning.

"But really the great thing about getting older is you're not thinking entirely through your trousers."