Ten things you never knew about Tom Jones by Sean Smith

by Lucy Moore | 12 March 2015

Tom was never in the school choir in his home village of Treforest in South Wales, despite being the best singer. He preferred to go solo, even pretending he was sick when his friends called round to take him carol singing. When they had gone he would slip out to perform alone: 'I made more money singing by myself,' he said.
He never forgot the advice of his Uncle George who told him, 'Let people see what you are singing about.' From his earliest performances onwards, Tom would pick out a young woman in the audience and sing one of his greatest love songs directly to them as if she were the only girl in the room.
Soon after his twelfth birthday, Tom complained of being very tired with no energy. An X-ray revealed he had tuberculosis and, as a result, he was confined to his bedroom for two years.
Tom was just sixteen when his teenage bride Linda gave birth to their son Mark. He didn't go to the maternity hospital with her because he was on night shift at a local factory where he was an apprentice glove cutter.
The breakthrough hit 'It's Not Unusual' was not written for him. His manager Gordon Mills and composer Les Reed wanted Sandie Shaw to perform the song but her agent turned it down. Tom had merely sung the demo but pleaded with them to give him the chance to record it.
When 'It's Not Unusual' was released, the first press statement said Tom was twenty-two, single and a miner. In reality was he was twenty-four, married with a young son and the nearest he had been to the mines was washing his dad's back.
Tom was first thrown a pair of knickers by a woman in the audience at the Copacabana Club, New York, in 1967. He grew to dislike the practice because it deflected attention from his voice.
Tom hated his misshapen nose, which had been broken many times in fights when he was a teddy boy. Eventually he persuaded his manager to let him have it fixed in an operation that was officially to 'repair some nasal cartilage'. He had regular cosmetic surgery for the next forty years.
Tom didn't enjoy a one hundred per cent seduction rate with famous women. Lulu, Sandie Shaw, Dionne Warwick and Darlene Love all managed to resist his charms.
Tom's loves being a judge on The Voice because he jets in from Los Angles and is provided with a suite at the Savoy hotel and can enjoy London life with old friends including the band leader and presenter Jools Holland.