The crowd began to hush each other, as the announcer took the microphone. Compere Black Eyed Pete stood waiting for the hall to be completely silent, before he would introduce the Special Guests that he had lined up for the special Charity night at Merthyr Tydfil Labour Club. Pete owned this stage. He was smartly dressed in a suit complete with gold pocket-watch and a much better tan than Cardiff City. He had mascara around his eyes, as he peered out like a panda at the packed hall.

Pete was the second generation of his family to have ruled the Club with his commanding stage presence. This ‘Labour of Love’ was not carried out for money, it was another demonstration of his caring nature- he was again showing he had a ‘Big Heart’ and wanted to put his home town of Merthyr Tydfil back on the map. Black- eyed Pete had recently appeared on the Television show – ‘Deep Throat’ where he had demonstrated his talent live to the Nation and in the process had made a few celebrity friends as contacts in the showbiz World. Pete had already appeared in a promotional video called the ‘Vampire of Merthyr’, where he had illustrated that the multinational monopoly stores were sucking the life blood out of the Big Heart of the Town leaving behind boarded up shops and tumbleweeds blowing around where once local businesses had thrived.

He was no stranger to fame and certainly no shrinking violet- his You-tube Video alone had had more hits than a battered wife in the Gurnos or a ‘bus-spotting’ heroin addict put together. He was featured white faced in Gothic costume, drinking a pint from the Queen Camilla Hospital Blood Bank, as he hung upside from a tree branch by his legs. His little stunt almost made into in the tabloid newspapers – which would have been a great reflection on the Town but due to a printing error and being a vampire no one could see him in the ‘Mirror’.

Like Dracula though, the Compere knew there was a ‘sucker’ born every minute, and tonight over 300 punters had paid £25.00 each for a show that would benefit a local charity and more importantly gave him the opportunity to raise his profile and share a stage with some of the World’s finest entertainers. That would be priceless on his C V. But Pete was no Madonna- he was no Material Girl. His pleasure came from the thrill of entertaining- a buzz feedback from his adoring public and not just the screeching sound from his microphone when he turned it on to announce his principal guest.

“ Ladies, Gentleman & crack addicts- let’s have a rousing Merthyr Tydfil welcome … live on stage at Merthyr Labour Club is no other than that Ponty boy made good- TOMMMMM JONES!”  boomed Pete, as the curtain was pulled back revealing the former ‘Sex Bomb’ who now looked more like a wrinkled hand grenade.

Tom looked at the curtain and had a feeling of ‘deja vue’. It was not just the surroundings either, as the velvet curtain was the very one Tommy Cooper had died behind years ago at the Her Majesty’s Theatre Performance . It was no longer capable of being billed as ‘Live at Her Majesty’s’ and was bought on e-bay by one of the Committee Men looking to save a couple of quid…he had to be quick as he was told it would go ‘Just like that!’.

Tom looked around the audience expectantly and was dumb struck.He had in nearly 60 years of performing never suffered from stage fright, in playing to audience on both sides of the Pond, Las Vegas shows and Royal Command Performances. He couldn’t understand, as he opened his mouth but no words would come out. True, the audience was exceptionally ugly, but there was something more deep-rooted in his psyche. He remembered then in 1963 , when he was ‘a boy from nowhere’ that he had been told by the then Entertainment Secretary Trevor, not to bother going on the stage for the second half, as he couldn’t sing and the crowd didn’t like him. His parting shot was that ‘he would never make it’. How accurate was that call …after 20 million record sales World-wide and a millionaire seventy five times over, the club official was made to eat humble pie. But the cheekly little bastard that had ‘paid him off ‘was still sat in the front row expecting an autograph.

For what seemed like an eternity to the audience, but which was merely seconds to the traumatised performer, you could hear a pin drop. Black eyed Pete didn’t know whether to intervene and save his superstar from embarrassment- but he was too scared – this WAS Tom Jones after all- not a small time Valleys entertainer.

For two whole minutes, Tom stood in front of the audience- mouth wide open but unable to form any words or force a sound out from his voice box.And then 80 year old committee man Trevor Quiff spoke.“ Come on Cauliflower Head….let’s see if you have improved since 1963!”

Tom was very touchy about his hair which had received various ‘Rooney’ treatments over the ears but was now a tight white kinky afro. The jibe spurred Tom out of his self –imposed musical coma and he finally found his voice.“ Well …that was my tribute to Simon & Garfunkel’s the Sound of Silence!” he quipped regaining his composure.The Merthyr audience were too dull to appreciate the joke. But at least Tom’s larynx was working in Merthyr again even if very few of the audience were.

“This is a song called a Boy from Nowhere!” said the former Ponty boy.“

"That’s impossible …you can’t be from Nowhere!” heckled Trevor.“ You are from Pontypridd….you fat get…the Full Pontynow…look at you swanning back into Wales after all those years a tax exile in California….you have got a cheek to call yourself Welsh!” barked Trevor.

Tom could feel his throat closing but in his mind’s eye wished it was Trevor’s. He had a mental vision of his Sunkist Californian orange hands around his neck….treating him to a different squash. The multimillionaire swore then that we he got back to Las Vegas and the Mob, he would get a hit put out on this old buzzard that had now embarrassed him twice in one lifetime.

“Treforest Plump….they ought to call you…your life has been like ‘a box of chocolates’ but us in the Valleys have seen tough times…the closure of the steel works, then the pits, then Hoovers and now our Town Centre is dying!” said Trevor.“ You could buy this Town and put it right…but what do you do…come here Lording over us like you own the place….I suppose you even expect an appearance fee for tonight..?” said Trevor.

Tom made eyes at Black eyed Pete as if to stay quiet.Trevor was already on it.

“Charity….there is no such thing as charity ….if you and the likes of Gary Barlow and co paid your fair share of tax based on your income this Island might be called ‘GREAT’ Britain again and not just known as Wails….so TAKE THAT!” said the old git.

Tom despite his 6 feet frame felt he was shrinking. He could respond in the only way he knew how- musically.

“Hit it!” said Tom to his invisible silent orchestra…Gary Oke. Black eyed Pete put the 45 rpm single on the record player and Tom began to do a ‘Milli Vanilli’ and mime to one of his old records.The Young New Mexican Puppeteer had never been performed so crackily before.

“I have never heard it sung that scratchily before!” said one audience member.

“It must be because of all those wrinkles…you have seen the way Yoda talks!” replied her friend.

“I told you that OBE stood for Old Bald ‘Ed!” shoutedTrevor as the record wound down.

“Leave him alone!” said a 70 year old woman with a 1960’s Beehive last seen in the Rosie Royals Café in Pontmorlais.

It was Tom Jones number 1 Fan and secretary of his World Wide Web fanny club, Eira Gwyn from Norfolk.She loved Tom with a passion that could only be equalled by Miss World contestants. Black Eyed Pete had found another more modern compact disc this time, the cover version of the Prince Song ‘Kiss’ from the early 1990’s.This was more of a challenge to the Voiceless star of the ‘Voice’ , as he would have to pretend to be the squeaky-voiced singer who’s voice was so high he could make ‘Dove’s Cry’. Tom tightened his trouser belt even more to compensate and the Front Row had a clear view of his ‘Full Monty’ meat and two veg.

This sent Eira wild , as the music started up from the I-phone of Black Eyed Pete who had routed it through the speakers.

“I think I’d better dance now!” said the Real Tom Jones, as the elderly women in the audience started to cover their idol in underwear.

In the 1960’s Hippy era, Tom had flower powered knickers everywhere, in the 1970’s it was still the Good Life but the panties became smaller, by the 1980’s they were miniscule and the 1990’s saw Tom being showered by Thora Hird and her ‘Thongs of Praise’….as the audience got older in the Naughty Noughties and into the turn of the Millenium the knickers started getting bigger again, as middle age spread took over, some of the underwear were marginally smaller than Chipperfield’s Circus Big Top and culminating in the ones thrown at him today which would have had taken out a smaller man off the stage.

Tom also had to duck, as lots of Room Keys to the Five star hotels of Merthyr - the Tregenna and the Castle Hotel rained down followed by the keys to Elwyn Morgan’s the ‘Dorchester’ on Brecon Road.

Eira Gwyn, or Snow White as she was to Tom, was always immaculate but to some of the locals in the audience from Merthyr, laundry was an expense they had decided to cut back on in favour of bingo, cigarettes and alcohol .One massive pair of grey knickers hit Tom right on his cauliflower patch and as he snatched the revolting pair off his head, he left behind a love memento from one of his Valley ‘Commando’ admirers.“

What is it about oral sex in Tesco Car park that always makes me want to shit!” said one committed Jones fan.

She stroked her varicose veined leg as she looked up at her ‘Sex Bomb’. It was all Tom could do not to vomit on the front row. He stood there oblivious to the fact that a small part brown part grey turd was lodged in his fake grey thatched roof. As Tom was such a big star, not even Black Eyed Pete could bring himself to tell him he had a Log on his bonce. If he didn’t want to be blacklisted from every entertainment venue in the World (again) he would have quipped “ Tom… you can leave your SHAT on!” But there would be Hell toupee if Tom found out and Pete would as organiser, would more than likely get the Californian law suit rather than the velvet one Tom had lent him for the evening.

“Shit.. Tom!” cried Trevor never one to pander to reputation….pointing at Tom’s head.On this occasion Trevor was trying to be helpful. Tom glared back at the old man before misinterpreting the comment and diving in an uncontrollable rage for his fellow pensioner – the one that had haunted his nightmares for many a year.Trevor realised he would never get an autograph now and decided to abuse the star in a way only a Club Entertainments Secretary could.

“And you’re a poultry thief…you stole a chicken from the Fochrhiw Social Club raffle too in 1963 !” alleged Trevor rolling round in a Greco/Roman wrestling hold Tom had learned from Caesar’s Palace.

“They had to have a chicken dinner minus, the chicken and they are a poor lot over there in Fochrhiw!” protested Trevor.

Despite the scrap, the offending turd refused to budge, even as the pair grappled, the lacquer and thatch of Tom’s barnet held it in place.The pair rolled around the floor amid spilled beer and old crisp packets, as both combatant’s plastic hips screamed and strained– Tom’s from years of pelvic thrusting and stage gyrations and Trevor’s hips from years of racy dance moves including Foxtrots and Tangos in this very concert hall.

Tom was top dog for a while, managing to wrestle the ancient committee man onto his back, before Trevor would use an old Red Indian trick he had learned from all those old Western Films he watched on the TCM Channel by flipping his opponent over. Once or twice Trevor had managed to get his plastic comb out to scalp his celebrity rival, only to be thwarted by the super-strong superglue used to keep Tom’s Grey, Grey Grass of home intact. The other people in the hall would not step in to help, they knew by filming this struggle on their camera-phones they would change their lives, as our celebrity obsessed culture whether at Caesar’s Palace or otherwise still loved gladiatorial contents.

Trevor being a Merthyr Labour Club Committeeman for over 50 years had much more experience in stopping fights then Tom Jones who was more used to watching women fighting over him. True, most of the time it was one of his wives and his present conquest. At one stage it was so frequent , the Management at Caesar’s Palace, the Corleone family, installed a mud pit at the front of the stage and charged additional fees to watch.

The Trevor and Tom fight ended when after three successive bangs to the concrete floor, Tom’s hair came away in Trevor’s hand and the innocent turd that had caused the melee, shot out into the air and was caught by Eira Gwyn , who eagerly snapped up the souvenir for her collection of items once touched by her Valleys hero. Over the years, she had become the original pop stalker, years before Mark Chapman shot John Lennon, Eira had become obsessed with Mr Jones having taken chest hair, fingernail clippings and chewing gum over the years and of course her prized used condom which he had signed for her at the Top of the Pops studios.

‘To my Delilah with lots of love….Uncle Tom’.

This she kept in an airtight glass case, in the hope that one day medical science could help her father her own mini version of Tom when they found a cure for her barren ovaries.The turd would now keep the condom company.The Police were called because of the ‘Tomfoolery’ going on in the Hall, and a Police Officer bravely pushed the unpaid female Community Police Officer into the fray as the entire hall erupted and cousin fought cousin, breaking chairs and tables over heads and punches were thrown indiscriminately.

And the men were just as bad.

The Police officer was asked by the ambulance brigade what was going on as he waited outside for the hurricane to blow itself out.

“Tom Jones is in town!” he replied.

“Oh I see!” said the Ambulance Man.

“Friday Night….Labour Club….fighting…Tom Jones…it’s not unusual!”

updated by @philip-evans: 01/28/16 09:58:30PM