Legendary singer Sir Tom Jones has celebrated his milestone 84th birthday today.
But heartbreakingly there will be one key person missing from his celebrations - his beloved wife, Linda. The couple had been married for 59 years when Linda lost her "short but fierce" battle with cancer in 2016. Her tragic death aged 75 left the Sex Bomb singer devastated as he paid an emotional tribute to the woman who had been at his side since he was a teenager.
Sir Tom said: "I recently lost my wife, my wife passed away and she was very important to me. There are a lot of people I'm proud of. "You've got to carry on, you have to, if I don't I'll fold. So music and everything that goes with it is keeping me a live, it keeps me going. And that's what she would want. She told me that. And so it's giving me strength. She knew how much it meant to me. And I'm doing it... I'm keeping my head above water."
The Welsh superstar was at his beloved wife's bedside as she lost her fight against the cruel disease after cancelling the Asian leg of his tour and rushing to be close to her. Sir Tom and Linda were just 16 when they tied the knot after meeting in the mining village of Pontypridd.
Tom Jones with his wife Linda (Camera Press)
Tom Jones in his home town in WalesJust a few months later the couple welcomed their only child, son Mark, and settled down into married life. But when Sir Tom burst onto the music scene at 24, Linda stayed firmly in the background. Initially, the Sixties sensation was described as a 22-year-old Welsh miner who was single.
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In fact, Sir Tom was a 24-year-old married man with a seven-year-old son. Throughout their entire 59 years as a married couple, Linda gave just one interview to the press and stayed out of the limelight. However, in her one public chat she made it clear just how strong the couple's bond was.
Linda explained: "I feel alive when he comes though the door, whatever the time of day or night is." However, she did admit that the constant adulation from female made her uncomfortable. She didn't attend any of his concerts and wasn't at his side when he received his knighthood at Buckingham Palace in 2006.
And Linda and Sir Tom often spent huge parts of their marriage living apart. Linda remained at their home in Beverly Hills while her husband toured the world. She had a quiet life with few hobbies, although she she was said to occupy her time with housework, watching TV and drinking Champagne.
Tom Jones and his wife Linda Jones and son MarkHeartbreakingly, as her husband's career soared, Linda is said to have confided in a friend that she “never felt good enough to be Tom’s wife”. However, Tom confessed in his autobiography that he had loved Linda since he was a child. In his 2015 autobiography Over the Top and Back, Sir Tom told how he first fell for Linda when they were both 12.
That same year he was diagnosed with tuberculosis and spent two years in bed convalescing. When he recovered, Linda would smile at him as she walked to school in Treforest, South Glamorgan, but it was not until just after her 15th birthday that she agreed to date Tom, born Thomas Woodward.
He wrote he had “never had that feeling for anyone else, I don’t think you can fall in love more than once”. Despite his clear adoration for his wife, Sir Tom's affairs have been well documented - he once claimed to have slept with up to 250 women a year at the height of his fame.
He had a two-year fling with Mary Wilson of The Supremes, and another with then Miss World Marjorie Wallace. His liaisons with female fans were legendary. They would throw their knickers on stage in a bid to attract his attention. His relationship with Marjorie, then 19, was uncovered in 1976 when they were pictured kissing on a beach in Barbados.
She was stripped of her Miss World crown, and when Sir Tom realised Linda was going to learn about that infidelity, he told the beauty queen it was over. When she found out about their affair, Linda was understandably furious. Sir Tom has previously said: “I stood there and took it. She chinned me. I said, ‘Go ahead’. She punched and shouted.”
The singer has explained an arrangement they came to in the late 1960s, when Linda stopped going on the road with him, as simply: “She doesn’t ask.” Even though the couple spent long periods apart, the time they were together was clearly special to both of them. Sir Tom’s biographer Sean Smith said that while the couple had been married more than 50 years, they had probably only spent 10 years in each other’s company.
He added: “Linda has her housekeeper and gardener, and sees more of them than anyone else. She hasn’t flown in years and is unlikely to come back to the UK again. When Tom’s in LA they are a retired couple in their 70s, having gentle drives and enjoying reading in the sun and TV, like a million other pensioners.”
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While Sir Tom has said: “I still love my wife. The longer you’re married, it changes. It’s no longer a sex thing. There’s got to be more than that for it to last. We both came from a working-class background, we both came from the same place, so we’re not like two foreign people having to explain to the other what their childhood was like.
“We grew up together. To walk away from that would be terrible.” Sir Tom left his affairs out of his memoirs, stating they were "not important". And for the Delilah singer, Linda was always his number one. Sir Tom said: "She’s the most important thing in my life. An unbelievable woman. Linda is the love of my life and she still is, even though she doesn’t look like she used to. I don’t look like I did, either, but I try my best.”
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