Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson, who lives at a 250-year-old country house in Minety, has been forced to take to the internet to warn off a man who he fears is following him after shows. 

The 67 year-old rock’n’roll flautist, who is currently on a solo tour of Europe and the United States, has used Jethro Tull’s official website to voice his concerns over the safety of himself and his wife.

He fears he may even be provoked to violence himself if he believes he or his wife Shona are in any way threatened.

In a personal message to the offender or offenders he says: “Please don’t follow me back to hotels after shows. 

“There have been a few threats of physical violence towards me in recent times and my first assumption is that someone following me in a car after a show and jumping out when I pull into a hotel is up to no good.

“That you may only be a fan seeking autographs, whether for yourself or Mr Ebay is not the issue. 

“My hotel is my sanctuary. You frighten my wife and put me under pressure to react to potential violence.” 

Mr Anderson, who lives with his wife of 37 years and their two children in an 18th Century house at a 400-acre estate on the edge of Minety, continued: “Stop and think. 

“If you were on your way home from work, late at night, and you became aware of a car or two following you to your home in the dark, you would get worried and understandably probably lock your car doors and call the cops.

“Please don’t do this. I won’t be in a good mood and I won’t sign your albums, in spite of your arguments and protestations. 

“You will get angry, call me names and I will get even angrier than you…… Not a nice way for any of us to end the otherwise pleasurable evening.”

Mr Anderson, who was awarded an MBE for services to music, is one of the best known figures from the late Sixties/early Seventies prog-rock era and his one-legged stance while playing the flute has become an iconic image.

Jethro Tull have sold millions of albums world-wide but the band is currently on ice while Mr Anderson tours his solo album Homo Erraticus.

Earlier this year the eco-minded rocker – who has 30,000 trees on his Wiltshire estate – performed a fund raising gig in front of 200 people at nearby Wroughton to help the community’s successful campaign to prevent the development of land at a local wildlife haven Kings Farm Wood.