Sir Elton John and David Furnish have become closer following the birth of their new son.

The couple ' who welcomed baby Zachary Jackson Levon into the world on Christmas Day (25.12.10) with the help of a surrogate mother ' have found their relationship has improved since the new arrival, and the 63-year-old singer has found he is a "natural" father.

David explained: "It's joyful, and it was interesting ' I didn't think, after 17 years we could feel any closer to each other, but I feel like the whole experience has brought us even closer together.

"And I just marvel at Elton at 63 years of age, attacking fatherhood for the first time. He's just a complete natural, he's rolled his sleeves up and got right involved, it's been wonderful."

While Sir Elton admitted he previously thought he was too old to be a father, his age is "nobody else's business" as long as the pair bring up baby Zach well.

He added to UK TV show 'Daybreak': "It crossed my mind a bit, I always said to you in the old days that maybe I'm too old to have a baby. I knew I would get criticised - we would get criticised ' and I knew that it's not everybody's cup of tea, you can't please everybody.

"We are not stupid people, we knew that we would get a lot of flak from certain areas, and we did, but we can rise above that and just bring our child up in the proper way. And at the end of the day it's really nobody else's business."