When Madonna met the family

The public may be used to Madonna portraying herself as cool, rebellious, attractive and hugely successful, but her mother-in-law sees her in a very different light.

In a fascinating insight into life at home with Madonna, Guy Ritchie's stepmother, Shireen, sees the superstar as an example of how a woman can successfully combine motherhood with work, and one who does not mind a supper of supermarket fishcakes.

Like most sons, Ritchie was nervous about taking his new girlfriend to see his mother for the first time, and neglected to say who exactly he would be bringing. So the would-be mother-in-law was completely unprepared for the guest at her Chelsea home.

"Guy rang to ask if he could come over for a bite to eat with a friend," she said. "So I nipped out to the supermarket and got a couple of packets of fishcakes and peas."

When the superstar turned up, she was a bit surprised to say the least. Mrs Ritchie said: "I was rather embarrassed and said something like, 'Tell me dear, how do you get into the music business?'"

The meeting with the prospective mother-in-law could have been a bit difficult, especially considering Madonna's extremely liberal views and the fact that Mrs Ritchie is the chairman of the Kensington and Chelsea Conservative Association.

However, the two women found common ground when discussing children. And now Mrs Ritchie and her husband John, who made his name in advertising with the Hamlet cigar campaign, don't mind the odd spot of babysitting for 18-month-old Rocco and Lourdes, five, when the celebrity couple are away on business.

Mrs Ritchie said: "We like taking Rocco to do normal things. He adores those huge activity centres.

"He's nearly two and a real little boy, and Madonna's daughter, Lola, is very girlie. Rocco's just started to talk. The whole family will be here for a while so maybe he will get an English accent." She says she admires 43-year-old Madonna for the way she has managed to balance her full-time job and still done a "wonderful hands-on" job bringing up the children. "She's quite strict and Rocco is a charmer," she said.

She is not so sure it is her 33-year-old son doing the nappy changing, either, adding: "I couldn't possibly say whether Guy changed a nappy. But he's always been a perfectionist, anything he's into, he'll be totally dedicated about it."

To observers, the couple's wedding at Skibo Castle and Rocco's christening in Dornoch Cathedral was a media circus with dozens of top names turning out for the occasions. Not so for Mrs Ritchie, who told the Daily Telegraph: "For us, it was just a family get- together."

It was the same when the in-laws went to visit Guy and Madonna on the set of Love, Sex, Drugs And Money, a film directed by Ritchie and starring his wife. "It wasn't all sex, drugs and money. It was a very family affair - lots of the film crew had children... there were toys and nappies everywhere," said Mrs Ritchie.