Kirjahaku

This book is about the incredible rise of young Teddy Boy and labourer, Tommy Woodward from Treforest, Pontypridd, to becoming Sir Tom Jones global superstar. He is now known, by the younger generation, as a judge on The Voice but over a 50 odd year odyssey he has had amazing adventures, becoming friends with the likes of Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra and a plethora of showbiz legends. Author Colin MacFarlane was a journalist on Tom's local paper The Pontypridd Observer in the 1980s. He lived in Tom's village of Treforest and even drank with all of Tom's friends and family in the local Wood Road Non Political Club. Over a pint they all had brilliant stories to tell about Tom's early days. Some have never been published before. MacFarlane was lucky to have interviewed them when they were still around. Many have now gone. MacFarlane has charted the early days and followed Tom's career ever since. The people he interviewed were all the real cast members of the real Tom Jones Show. It's a star studded rock n' roll story about a Ponty boy who conquered the world with his voice. It is also a tale of sex, booze and rock n' roll with quite a few surprising twists along the way. A must read for all Tom Jones' fans and also for the younger generation who are fans of Tom on The Voice.

Colin MacFarlane was born in the Gorbals in the 1950s, 20 years after the publication of No Mean City, the classic novel about pre-war life in what was once Glasgow's most deprived district. He lived in the same street as its fictional 'razor king', Johnnie Stark, and subsequently realised that a lot of the old characters represented in the book were still around as late as the 1960s. Men still wore bunnets and played pitch and toss; women still wore headscarves and treated the steamie as their social club. The razor gangs were running amok once again, human waste ran down the tenement stairs, and filth, violence, crime, rats, poverty and drunkenness abounded, just like they did in No Mean City. MacFarlane witnessed the last days of the old Gorbals as a major regeneration programme, begun in 1961, was implemented, and, as a street boy, he had a unique insight into a once great community in rapid decline. He witnessed drunken fights, gang battles, police corruption and even the occasional stabbing, slashing and murder. But the Gorbals had another side: one where ordinary hard-working people were trying to survive in what was arguably once the most notorious area in the world. In this engrossing new book, MacFarlane reveals what it was really like to live in the old Gorbals.

Enid Blyton wrote about the Famous Five - wholesome kids who were always up to some adventure or other - but during the 1960s Glasgow boy Colin MacFarlane had his own gang: the Incredible Gorbals Diehards. These were young boys trying to survive in one of the world's toughest areas, the infamous slums of Glasgow. During the gang's daily adventures, they came across a plethora of undesirable characters, including foul-mouthed drunks, thieves, razor-flicking gang members, con men, fly men and street brawlers. Through it all, MacFarlane and his band of brothers retained their sense of humour while roaming the filthy, stench-ridden Gorbals backstreets. In the third volume of his acclaimed memoirs, bestselling author Colin MacFarlane reveals what it was like to grow up on the streets of the Gorbals during this period. Be prepared to be shocked and entertained at the adventures of the gang that called themselves the Incredible Gorbals Diehards.