Dawn Collinson learns about the Southport-born Ronson Clan matriarch, Ann Dexter-Jones

THEY teasingly call her Mommy Dearest because, as children, they always had the least pocket money and earliest bedtimes.

But there’s no doubt that the rock royalty that is the multi-talented Ronson clan owe more than a little of their Midas touch to their fabulous matriarch.

And they know it.

Ann Dexter-Jones, once an aspiring fashion designer from Southport, is the darling of the New York social scene these days.

Not a socialite, corrects her son, DJ and producer Mark Ronson. That would be an insult. His mother is, he insists, “invited to places because they like her.”

In fact, no Manhattan guest list is complete without Ann, who has been an icon of the party and club scene there since the early 80s.

It was then that she crossed the Atlantic with her second husband Mick Jones, guitarist with rock band Foreigner, to embark on a new life which became the stuff of legend.

Al Pacino came for Christmas lunch, Daryl Hall dropped by to play chess at breakfast, Robin Williams read stories to the young Ronsons as they drifted off to sleep.

“It was,” accepts Ann, with no small talent for understatement, “a pretty glamorous environment.”

Ann and Mick divorced two years ago after three decades together, but her enthusiasm for a frenetic, gregarious lifestyle remains undiminished.

Beautiful and youthful at 61, she is still often to be found out with one of her famous brood at New York’s hottest venues. The Plumm, in the super-trendy meat-packing district, is one favourite. Mark is a regular DJ there to a celebrity clientele including supermodel Agyness Deyn and Sex And The City’s Chris Noth; his mum just happened to have a hand in designing it.