Tom Jones Poignantly Paid Tribute To Wife Linda In TV Documentary Weeks Before Her Death

A BBC documentary on Tom Jones’ life to be shown this weekend will take on tragic sadness following his wife’s death.

The Welsh warbler, below, is seen talking about he used to love serenading his missus of 59 years Linda in the programme that will be aired on Saturday.

He revealed via Facebook she had passed away on Sunday after a “short but fierce” cancer battle.

Speaking in the show Tom Jones’ 1950s: The Decade That Made Me he recalls how he fell in love with her when they were both aged just ten and would “serenade” her in the street.

Standing at Linda’s old home in Pontypridd he says: “This is exactly where I first saw her when she was ten years old. This is the street where she lived.

“Linda was asleep up in that room and so I would serenade her from here.

“The song Irene, Goodnight – I changed it from Irene to Linda. So Linda, Goodnight.”

The former Voice coach, above and below with Linda in their prime, adds: “Her father used to get ticked off because I used to whistle as well a lot when I’d come past to let her know it was me.

“He used to say, ‘That whistling crow is out there again’.”

Linda got pregnant at 16 and they married shortly before their son Mark was born.

Jones also tells viewers in the show, to be aired 9pm on BBC2, how he managed to get his new in-laws onside.

He added: “When Linda pregnant, something had to be done. They could how in love we were with one another.

“I was now suddenly a teenage husband and father, just as I started seeing British rock ’n’ roll artists on TV for the time. And we’re still married 59 years later.”

Jones was at Linda’s bedside in a Los Angeles hospital as she died.

It came after he cancelled gigs in Asia last, citing a “serious illness in the immediate family”.

It’s also emerged Jones told son Mark months before her death he may never be able to sing again if she died before him.

He told his boy, who is also his manager: “If your mother doesn’t make it, I don’t know whether I can sing.”

His and Linda’s marriage survived despite his numerous affairs and her increasing reclusiveness.

Pictures Getty Images