Sir Rod Stewart marks relaxing of social distancing rules with Ronnie Wood hug

Sir Rod Stewart marked the relaxing of social distancing rules on Monday 17 May by hugging his Faces bandmate Ronnie Wood.

The musicians were joined by their wives as they embraced for a snap posted to 76-year-old Stewart's Instagram.

In the first photograph, Stewart hugged Wood, 73, while his wife Penny Lancaster did the same to the Rolling Stones star's wife Sally Humphreys.

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They all lined-up for the second photo before swapping hug partners again, this time with Wood and Humphreys, 43, facing the camera.

"Back together again #oldfaces #hugs," Stewart wrote before tagging Mayfair's The Arts Club, a private members' club.

Lancaster, 50, posted the same pictures to her own page, writing: "Couldn’t be happier to see our dear fiends @ronniewood and @sallywood1 to celebrate the first official day out/IN with a big hug.

"The first time in a very long time. #hugs #friends @the_arts_club."

Wood recently shared that he had been given the all-clear in lockdown after a second cancer diagnosis.

In an interview released in April, he divulged that he'd had small-cell cancer.

Watch: Rod Stewart gifted Penny Lancaster a narrowboat for her 50th birthday

Referencing the concept of a “higher power” as by Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous, he told The Sun: "All I can do is stay positive in my attitude, be strong and fight it, and the rest is up to my higher power.

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“I’m going through a lot of problems now, but throughout my recovery, you have to let it go. And when you hand the outcome over to your higher power, that is a magic thing.”

He had previously battled lung cancer in 2017.

The four-year-old twin daughters he shares with Humphreys, Gracie Jane and Alice Rose, had been born in the previous year.