Kiss that turned Sir Tom, 80, into a superstar
A GAME of kiss-chase as a youngster changed Sir Tom Jones’ life and helped turn him into a global star.
The Welsh icon, who is 80 tomorrow, realised it was his “destiny” to marry Linda, the girl he played marbles with in the streets of Pontypridd.
She kept his feet on the ground through 59 years of a sometimes turbulent marriage that ended only when she died of cancer in 2016.
The pair first knew each other as children, Tommy Woodward and Melinda Trenchard, dating at 15 and marrying at just 16.
Now Sir Tom, who had a top 10 hit in 1988 with a cover of the Prince song Kiss, reveals: “I remember her playing marbles. I thought, ‘My God, what great legs she’s got’.
“Then she stood up and she was as pretty in the face as her legs were.
The kids started playing kiss-chase. We would chase the girls and kiss them. But I felt different when I kissed her, and she felt the same.
“Linda taught me to jive. She could really dance. That was all part of it. She look great. She was the best looking girl around. It was magic.”
The pair’s families met to discuss what to do when Linda became pregnant at 15 with son Mark. Sir Tom, in a two-part interview starting tonight on Radio 2, says: “My mother said, ‘As soon as they’re old enough, they’re going to get married anyway, so why stop it?’. It was destiny she happened to be born around the corner from myself. She would bring me down to earth.”
● Sir Tom’s MusicalYears begins at 9pm tonight on BBC Radio 2