Next month some of Tom Jones’ dole office papers from the sixties go under the hammer.

Tom Jones will be seventy this year. Since rising to fame in the mid sixties he has come to enjoy international success. With numerous hits under his belt and millions of record sales, he was knighted four years ago for his services to music. No doubt this came as a shock to some of the staff of the local employment office in South Wales where he was signing on in the early sixties. Now, forty plus years later, the scathing comments some of them made have come to light contained in several documents found in a skip a few years ago, and currently up for auction.

The documents - consisting of six buff coloured cards – are believed to have been disposed of when the records were computerized. Considered to be highly collectable, it is hoped that they will sell for thousands of pounds when they finally go to Auction on April 15th.  However, aside from any anticipated monetary worth they might have, they are of value in that they offer a biographical ‘snapshot’ account of the performer starting out on what was to become a highly successful career. Thomas Woodward – his real name - was trying hard to make a living out of his singing at this point, but this necessitated him signing on and taking a few manual jobs. The records note that he had a preference not to take on any job that entailed shift work, since it might interfere with his developing singing career, and contain sarcastic comments on this by the unemployment office staff. There are also references to his smart, well dressed appearance when he turned up to sign on.

T he records document the transition from him being a member of an amateur singing group in December 1963, to imminent recording artist by July 1964. The last entry at this point states, “Claimant showed me a letter from Decca Studios confirming a recording session had been arranged. He has been talking about ‘going professional’ since April but he is still signing the UR [unemployment register] and not autograph books.”  It would seem from the evidence that Sir Tom hasn’t looked back!