TOM Jones was 79 on Friday and still a fine figure of a man who obviously has no problem turning women to jelly and for some reason wanting to throw their knickers at him.
It’s been like that for years, since I first meet him in the early 60s when he came to Ulster Television to publicise It’s Not Unusual and I had the pleasure of going to his dressing room and asking him to sign his contract for something like 10 guineas!
He was shirtless and beautiful, bulging muscles, leather pants and a rabbit’s foot on his belt. Oh yes, I remember it well!
I passed a compliment on the song and he said: "Thanks love, I’m going to enjoy it – it’s a one off." Almost 60 years later there he is blowing everyone away when he sings on The Voice. And still turning women to quivering jellies.
Most recently at the New Orlean Jazz Festival he was bombarded with pants of all shapes and colours and he took it in good heart. After all, he is the ultimate showman.
Around about 15 years ago I brought my friend Margaret to see her idol perform in the Waterfront Hall. It was a cauldron of feverish excitement, women dressed up to the nines, short skirts and plunging necklines – and that was only the older members of the audience. When this Adonis came on stage it was total mayhem. Soon Margaret, a granny, was dancing in the aisles to a sex bomb grandpa gyrating on stage.
Looking back, I remember Margaret telling me how her father heard Tom Jones on radio and told her he was going to be big – the boy’s good, he said.
“And if my daddy told me something was good it was good.”
She became hooked, bought all his records, posters and programmes, she went to see him in Blackpool and had a precious memento.
“A scarf I threw at him, he wiped his brow with it and threw it back. I can still smell his aftershave from it.” She’d made it to the front row. “It was wonderful, I could even see the fillings in his teeth.” Now that is adoration.
In the Waterfront audience a couple from the Falls Road and their three daughters – nine, five and four – were really enjoying the fun, Margaret from east Belfast was on one side of me and a lady called Anne on the other.
I wrote about the experience at the time and how I was especially intrigued when Anne left the auditorium for a few minutes during the second half, came back in and marched straight down to the front and proceeded to throw her panties on to the stage.
But so did a lot of women
One girl told me how she’d been practising for weeks with her Marks and Spencer pants, getting the tension of the elastic just right to catapult them through the air and she – and I – couldn’t believe it when on the night her offering actually hit his feet.
He continues to bump and grind and shout ‘Ya’, he obviously enjoys the sex-symbol tag but doesn’t take it too seriously; his fans still lust after him but there’s a lot of genuine love and respect as well.
On that night in the Waterfront the tight trousers and the frilly blouse had gone – it was black shirt and well-tailored dark suit, with the jacket’s one button at the breast bone allowing a little glimpse of lower torso which infuriated a woman behind me who kept shouting, "Take your jacket off."
Poor Margaret was well known for her infatuation of this amazingly sexy man but it was a Catch 22 situation. Every time Tom Jones appeared on television, Margaret didn’t get a chance to see him because the phone never stops ringing with friends telling her Tom Jones was on television. I wonder if the still happens all these years later.
For the man who has done for karaoke what McDonalds did for cheeseburgers, it was the theme song from the Full Monty film Leave Your Hat On, with throbbing guitars, that got the place vibrating and sent Margaret into paroxysms of delight.
Some girls jumped on stage but were gently removed, no-one was precious about photographs being taken, the pants and bloomers landed all round the place but everyone knew it was a joke, especially Tom Jones who occasionally caught a pair and it looked like he dabbed his brow – this nearly brought the house down.
People danced to Sex Bomb, Green Grass of Home went down well, some nearly had heart attacks to Mamma Told Me, and when he sang “... your kiss” – well, I almost had one too. Those were the days.
And what was the hit of the night and nights ever since? Delilah. Despite the fact that this is a very iffy song he continues to sing it, and in the age of girl power some think rugby crowds in Wales should stop singing it at games – some chance. Have you ever listened to the words?
I saw the light on the night that I passed by her window
I saw the flickering shadows of love on her blind, She was my woman
As she deceived me I watched and went out of my mind.
My, my, my, Delilah, Why, why, why, Delilah
I could see, that girl was no good for me
But I was lost like a slave that no man could free,
At break of day when that man drove away, I was waiting
I crossed the street to her house and she opened the door
She stood there laughing
I felt the knife in my hand and she laughed no more.
My, my, my, Delilah etc.
And to think that all those years ago he reckoned It’s Not Unusual was a one off.
