He isn't selling up and leaving Britain and he certainly isn't being told how to spend his own money, Sir Cliff Richard tells Viv Hardwick as he prepares to tour the UK and cut the first of two new albums.

ENJOYING a cup of coffee with pop legend Sir Cliff Richard, while we discuss his forthcoming tour, is all the more intriguing when a national newspaper has run the front page headline that he's about to sell up and quit the country. Dressed in a brown soft leather jacket and collarless snakeskin-coloured shirt, the tanned multi-millionaire leans back in a chair at Newcastle's MetroRadio Arena, where he'll be performing in November, to respond.

"There was a front page headline saying that but in the article inside it said that I'm not so I don't understand how that happened at all. I've sold my house and made an offer on another one which is about 20 minutes away from me."

And the picture painted of him being a near recluse who has recently gained a social life thanks to the friendship and business help of mysterious US catholic priest Fr John McElynn?

"It's wrong to generalize but I have found that most journalists, present company excepted, have agendas and we'll never be able to stop that. And if the agenda is to write a story about me in some particular way that will be added to the facts that I am selling my house and that I do plan to spend more time abroad possibly, and hopefully, more time in America because I haven't given up hope of breaking into the US market, " he says.

Following a successful performance in front of Country Music Award bosses last year, Sir Cliff feels that being based more at his home in Barbados will allow him to respond within a few hours on opportunities to perform in the states. "When the press sometimes gets the facts together they can swing it around to their own story and nobody gets the real truth. It's a little bit frustrating but it doesn't really matter."

What really annoys him is the intrusive nature of suggestions that he's being influenced in his private life and business dealings by someone else.

"My mother did this to me sometimes where she'd say 'you're being run by all these businessmen' and I wrote to her and said 'do you really think that I'm that weak a person that I've made all this out of my life simply because other people have told me to do things, you don't think I had anything to do with it myself ?' She wrote me back a fantastic letter saying 'of course you've done it because you are what you are', " says the singer who feels that his own creative ability has often been overlooked during his career.

"The common factor of all the hits I've had is me, so I must have had a part to play in all of this and nobody tells me where to spend my money at all, " he adds. Many of the tributes he's received over the years have come from men who admit to being dragged along to a Cliff concert by their wives.

"The best mail I've received is from men who were dragged along and now say 'you're quite good' which is great for someone who's seen himself presented in the press as a wishy-washy Christian who really doesn't know how to do rock'n'roll. So 'quite good' will do, " he laughs.

So is this where the young singer born Harry Rodger Webb wanted to be all those years ago?

It is, but I didn't think I'd be here this long. There was no way of knowing how it would go. That period was so new and we were written off as one-hit wonders and of course I remember Jack Good, who produced by first TV show, saying to me 'we all sing the song Rock'n'Roll Is Here To Stay, but we're just hoping it will be'."

Sir Cliff admits that the sales of his last album were disappointing even though it won critical support and he adds: "I haven't given up hope on it and I'm going to feature songs from it heavily on the tour. I thought it was one of the best albums I've made in 20 years but I'm beginning to understand that radio, apart from Radio 2 and the Gold stations, don't play records by people like me regardless of whether the quality is good enough to impress a 20-year-old. We don't figure in the equation."

Even so, the singer is planning an album of duets which means he'll get the chance to sing with Dionne Warwick, Barry Gibb, Anne Murray and Daniel O'Donnell. "I'm going through the whole gamut and the big coup this week was that I phoned Brian May of Queen because I'd like to do a brand new version of Move It, which was my first ever record with Brian Bennett who was The Shadows' drummer.

Brian May was really excited, " says Sir Cliff who is basing the song on the sound of rock guitarist Joe Bonamassa's High Water Everywhere.

"I thought this is how Move It would sound today because the song was basically a vocal and guitar duet so I think it qualifies for the album. Plus I've also recorded with Olivia (Newton John), Elton John and Phil Everly. With an album like that it means all someone has to do is hear Barry Gibb and I singing Fields Of Gold and they'll say 'oh it's like that is it, " adds the 65-year-old who admits that Rod Stewart's recent collection of US standards has inspired him to look back at his own lengthy songbook.

For those of us who can remember watching Sir Cliff drive that red double-decker in Summer Holiday at the pictures or winning Eurovision it isn't too difficult to pick out a song that would mark your journey to those pearly gates.

In my case it's Everyman, by Alan Tarney, the final track of 1980 LP I'm No Hero.

"In Barbados this year I was playing some of my old albums and this year I had an idea of doing something different to Living Doll etc and that track stood out. So we'll make a note of that, " he says.

Whether that was an act of Christian kindness or not, his winter tour sounds better and better to this particular reporter.

Cliff Richard's Here & Now Tour plays Newcastle's MetroRadio Arena on November 28-29. Box Office: 0870 707 8000