Gwen Russell - Tom Jones: An Extraordinary Life

C an there be a more popular entertainer than the Welsh singer Tom Jones? One of the most enduring celebrities of our day, he first appeared on the scene in the early 1960s and actually started his career as a teen idol, but swiftly changed tack to become the more sophisticated singer he is today. Its not just his sheer raw talent and voice that hold such appeal, however. Throughout his life he has also been a sex symbol, to the extent that although he was already in his sixties when he received his knighthood, clever headline writers knew his fans would love an ever-appropriate reference to one of his biggest hits, greeting him with headlines such as Arise, Sir Sex Bomb. At one stage he was almost as famous for the lingerie shops worth of knickers that was thrown on to his stage every night as he was for his singing, but still Tom the Voice shone through. After more than forty years in the business, he still shows no signs of letting up, continuing to perform in concert and live the high life, something he does to great aplomb.

Its all a very long way from his origins in Pontypridd, the pride of the Rhonda in the valleys of South Wales. While many showbusiness stars like to turn roots that are solidly middle class into something a little bit more exciting, Tom is the real deal. He comes from an achingly poor background, with a father who spent his life working down the pits something Tom was able to rescue him from the moment he had the means and he left school with little prospects, which led to some very dead-end jobs. No one in the family was in showbusiness so there was no way they could possibly have predicted what lay in store for young Tom. Nor was he a trained singer: early on the family realised it had a boy with a mighty fine voice on its hands, but there was no question of them being able to do anything about it with a view to Tom singing professionally. For a start, there wasnt the money and even if there had been, it wasnt the sort of thing his family would have dreamt of, so alien was the concept of a son in the world of showbusiness. But thats the way it turned out, with Tom leading a life of international fame and stardom, culminating in the ultimate accolade of a knighthood.

Way back in the beginning, it was all so very different. On 7 June 1940 Thomas Jones Woodward was born to Thomas Woodward, a miner, and housewife Freda Woodward, ne Jones. Until Tom was four, they lived in 57 Kingsland Terrace in Treforest, near Pontypridd, when they moved to 44 Laura Street, which was where he grew up. His parents were delighted at their new arrival and right from the start, he was a very attractive little boy, as his mother remembered: Oh, he was such a pretty little boy, she said. It used to frighten me sometimes, thinking somebody might want to take him away. Indeed, when Tom was two and a half and the family was on holiday on Barry Island, he did go missing for over an hour before his frantic mother finally found him. I took him by the hand and was walking back when a woman we passed said, Oh look, theres little Tommy Woodward, 44 Laura Street, Pontypridd. How do you know that? I asked her, astonished. Well, she said, I caught hold of him, and he told me his name and address very plainly, but he wouldnt stay with me.

They were a musical family and from very early on, Tom was exposed to performing. On Saturday nights his parents would sing at the Wood Road Non-Political Club, where his Uncle George booked the acts. Tom was encouraged to sing everywhere else, too. At chapel he sang the Lords Prayer and Barbara Allen at Treforest Secondary Modern School. From a very early age he had an exceptionally powerful voice: during choir practice renditions of Men of Harlech sometimes had to be abandoned as he out-rumbled everyone else. Of course, the musical traditions of Wales are very strong, which encouraged him greatly, something of which he was well aware. In Wales there are choirs, especially male-voice choirs, which a lot of my cousins were in, he recalled. A Welsh tenor will have a full Welsh voice, even though hes singing high, full-blown window shattering material. Maybe speaking Welsh lends itself, the accent maybe part of it is the cheapest way of making music is to sing. You dont need to buy an instrument. Even so, he was a precocious little boy. When I was four I used to stand on a box in the corner of the grocers while my mother was doing the shopping and sing to the customers and collect the pennies, he once revealed.

Right from the start his mother Freda knew she had an entertainer on her hands. From a very young age Toms voice was remarkable and he always knew what he wanted to do. He developed a habit of jumping up on to the windowsill, pulling the curtains across and demanding his mother joined in. Decades later, he mused: Shed say, Look, Im busy, Im trying to clean the house. And I would say, No, I want you to introduce me. Anyway, shed do it and Id throw back the curtains and jump out. Even though there was nobody there but my mother. Sometimes, though, he had an audience of two when his sister Sheila was persuaded to watch.

But it was a tough life and the family was typical of the area and of the time. When my father was down the mine, he was a hard-working, hard-drinking man, Tom later recalled. He used to like his cards and a flutter on the horses. He used to go out on the booze on Saturdays and I looked up to him. He put my mother in her place and they used to fight, but it was a healthy upbringing. At an early age Toms view of marriage was formed: the man would go out and bring home the bacon and the woman would cook it; the man would also rule the roost. It was how his later life was to pan out. But certainly he idolised his father. I always thought what a good physique he had and I wanted to be like him, he remembered. When I was little, I yearned to be a man, to be the best I could. I have a memory of being a small boy, hearing a noise in the night and my father getting up to see what it was. I remember thinking, When I grow up, will I be as brave as that?

Just before he entered his teens, two things happened that had a profound bearing on his future. For a start, aged just eleven, he met a local Catholic girl (also eleven) when she was playing marbles close to where he lived. Her name was Melinda Trenchard, although she was more commonly known as Linda and the two hit it off immediately. I went to a Protestant school so we didnt mix that much but I always liked those Catholic girls because they wore little gold earrings, he recalled. Very sexy. So I saw her playing marbles and she had great legs.

Linda was indeed an attractive girl. She was a very, very pretty girl and popular, says Jean Thomas, one of Toms cousins on his mothers side. She was a catch, stunning with short, blonde hair and she had what they called a DA [ducks arse], a little tuft at the back of her neck. She was also very fashion conscious and had the first of everything. I remember clutch bags; she was one of the first to have a clutch bag. They knew one another in school. I think she was just in a class lower and I think she was a bit cleverer than Tom and I. I always remember she was in the A classes. She also liked fashion and boys, as girls do.