Elton John’s husband David Furnish has given an insight into their family life, sharing details of their sons Zachary, 13, and Elijah, 11, half term ski break in Zermatt in Switzerland.

The 62-year-old Canadian took to Instagram where he posted a video of the boys showing off their skills on the slopes. Captioning it he wrote: “The half-term school break ski holiday tradition continues.

“Elijah is in red and Zachary in blue. The boys politely followed my snowboard down the hill for this video. Otherwise they left me behind in the powder,” he confessed.

The filmmaker also posted a group image showing him with one of his brothers and other family members. Elton was conspicuously absent from the posts and it is unknown if he accompanied his husband and sons on their annual break.

The singing superstar has been busy of late promoting his upcoming new album, Who Believes in Angels?, which is a collaboration with US country singer Brandi Carlisle and wil be released on April 4.

During a promotional appearance on The Graham Norton show he admitted he “lost it” and had to be consoled for 45 minutes when a new song forced him to face up to his own mortality. He came close to tears making the emotional admission.

“Bernie Taupin (Elton’s lyricist) gave me a lyric for a song called, ‘When This Whole World Is Done With Me’, and I’m writing the verse (music) quite quickly, and I think this is a really lovely verse.

“And then I get to the chorus, and I find that it’s about my death, my demise. And as a 76 year old man, which I was at that time, and having children and having a husband, mortality, and you think about, ‘How long have I got? How long? I hope I’ve got much longer than maybe I’ve got [left].’

“And so by the time I got to the chorus and suddenly realised that I started singing it (and) I lost it for 45 minutes. It was a very, very heavy moment for me,” he confessed.

“After 45 minutes of being consoled, I was okay, but I recorded the next day…when you’re singing about being washed out to sea and the end of your life, it took me by surprise,” he confessed.

“It’s a really lovely song. I did it all in one take the next day. I just came in and did its vocal and piano at the same time.

“And I put a brass band at the end of it, because I’ve always loved brass bands, colliery bands, because they their music is rather sad – the sound of it.

“I always loved the Cup Final when they played ‘Abide With Me’ and I alwasy used to cry no matter how old I was, because it was so beautiful.”