Tom Jones International

It happened in Reno, Thursday night, August 25th, at 10.30

My granddaughter Emma, who is 24, decided to gamble with me. As she was crossing the square in front of Harrah’s she noticed a guy who was standing all alone in the middle and thought, “I am sure that’s Tom Jones.”

She approached him and said, “Are you Tom Jones?”

He replied, “Yes.”

“Are you really Tom Jones?”

“Yes, I really am Tom Jones.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I was standing here peacefully until you came along,” he laughed.

“My Grandma’s been in love with you for years since she saw you in a pub in Wales 20 years ago.”

Tom asked er name and then said, “It’s more than 20 years, Emma, since she saw me in pub in Wales.”

Emma asked him to sign her hotel key holder “To Shirley (signed) Tom Jones.”

He did, and then she asked if he would wait there until she ran to get me and he said, “Go on. But hurry. I’m going to a show but I’ll wait for her as long as I can.”

Long story short, she came and got me and at first I didn’t believe she had met him at all and was pulling my leg until she showed me the key card he had signed. I went with her very quickly after I saw that.

When I got there he was talking to someone else, but he turned to Emma and asked, “Is this your Grandma, Emma?”

Tom greeted me and I told him I have been a fan for 43 years.

“Wow,” he replied.

We began to talk about the pubs and social clubs we had gone to in Wales and then I said I had been to his concerts all over the world in the years I had been a fan.

I added, laughing, “In fact, half the money in your bank account is mine.”

He laughed, too, and patted his inside pocket, saying, “Oh, dear, I have forgotten my check book tonight.”

“That’s okay, Tom,” I assured him. “I wouldn’t take an out-of-state check anyway.”

Emma told him she’d recognized him from “the picture on the book.”

“Which book is that?” he wanted to know.

“The Tribute to A Legend book,” I said referring to a project some fans put together. I added that I had been in Connecticut last November when it was presented to him.

“Great,” he said, and asked me how long I had been living here in the US, where I lived now and how I came to be here. So I told him of how I’d been injured and pensioned off from the Greater Manchester Police Department and had moved to California.

Don had joined us by then and he and I started talking about the club scene in Manchester.

Emma told Tom we were going to his show the next night and he asked where we were sit and when she told him he said would look for us.

It got time for Tom and Don to go to the show they were seeing at Harrah’s, so I said, “It was nice meeting you both.”

As I began to walk off, Tom opened his arms and said, “Well come on and give me a big hug and kiss.”

Of course, I obliged him and as I walked off I looked back and called, “I love ya, Tommy,” and he burst out laughing.

I was so surprised when I talked to him, as he is so different from when he is on stage. He’s much more down to earth then I remember him but then that was a long, long time ago.

After meeting him Emma is now in love with him now as well. Of course, his shows were great — same songs and chat as usual — but he was in fine form. Most of the audience was made up of young girls who were shouting and screaming for him so, of course, he was made up with that.

It was a dream come true, having quiet time with Tom. I am still in a daze. What a gentleman!