Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Tom: Saved by Voice of God
Star got into trouble during solo swim off Mexico beach
SIR Tom Jones believes divine intervention saved his life when he got into trouble swimming in shark-infested waters off Mexico.
The singer was at a beach barbecue in Acapulco, a resort popular with the jet set in the 1960s, when he swam off alone and got caught in the undertow.
Tom, 80, said: “I swam down and hadn’t moved an inch. I thought, ‘This is it now’. I always used to put my jewellery in my man bag and for some unknown reason I didn’t.
“I put my hand on my chest and still had this big cross and chain on.”
The Voice coach Sir Tom, whose new album Surrounded By Time is out this week, felt comforted by his crucifix and decided to ask for God’s help.
He said: “I put my hand on it and said, ‘God, I’m desperate here. What do I do?’ I was going to give up. I thought I’d take a load of water in and say good night. A voice came to me and said, ‘If you think you can swim, now is the time to prove it’.
“Head down I go like the clappers. I’m caught and spun, surely I’m going to be thrown on the beach and break my neck? The wave tossed me on to the beach.”
Sir Tom, whose affair with engaged Marjorie Wallace led to her being stripped of the 1974 Miss World title, learned later the area he was swimming in was populated with sharks.
And experienced local swimmers said as the undertow had caught him, swimming directly to the beach as he had done would usually be impossible.
Asked by Alan Carr on his Life’s A Beach podcast, out today, if he thought God had spoken to him, Sir Tom replied: “Definitely. They said, ‘Some divine thing happened to you – it was not your time to go’.”