Read an Excerpt
Aled Jones
My Story
By Aled Jones, Darren Henley John Blake Publishing Ltd
Copyright © 2013 Aled Jones and Darren Henley
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-78219-823-9
CHAPTER 1
BY ROYAL COMMAND
The first time I heard about being summoned before the Prince of Wales was when I came home from school on a Monday afternoon. As usual, I had spent the day at David Hughes Comprehensive in Menai Bridge and had returned home on the school bus, with more pupils crammed on board than there were seats. I always stood up at the front with my mates. We were typical 13-year-olds with scuffed shoes and ties that had been ripped off and stuffed in our sports bags the moment we left the school buildings.
It was 1985, I was at the height of my career as a boy soprano and there was a great offer of some sort waiting for me nearly every day when I arrived home. All important decisions in our house would be made around the kitchen table. Mam was the teacher of the reception class at the local primary school, so she got home first and cooked the evening meal. Dad would come home from his job as an engineer. We would all sit around the table and invariably there would be a letter inviting me to sing in one concert or another.
On this particular day, though, my parents were both white-faced. Mam asked, 'How do you feel about singing for Prince Charles and Princess Diana?'
When the call came through from Prince Charles's private secretary my parents could not believe it, presuming it to be a practical joke. The official said: 'Prince Charles has loved your son's voice for a long time. He knows that he's thirteen and would like to hear him sing for himself before his voice breaks. So would he be kind enough to come down to Kensington Palace and perform for the Prince and Princess of Wales?'
'Oh, yeah!' was my immediate reply, because secretly I loved Princess Diana, I really did. I thought that she was the best thing in the world. Then, when Mam and Dad told me where I would be singing, in the Prince and Princess's private living room at Kensington Palace, I just didn't know what to make of it. It was all going to happen just three days later.
The first thing that went through my mind was that it probably wouldn't get any bigger than singing for royalty. People who live in North Wales don't often get the opportunity to see the royal family. It was to be the biggest thing that I could have done at that time. What made me even more nervous was that the Prince and Princess were inviting me into their house. All sorts of silly questions flashed through my mind. What would I wear? What would I have to eat? What would happen if I made a mistake? Lying in bed that night, I felt a mixture of nervousness and real excitement. The next morning the big question was: what was I going to sing?
I was asked to bring a pianist with me and I chose one of the best I have ever worked with – a lady called Annette Bryn Parri. When she found out that she was going to be playing at Kensington Palace, she was as amazed as I was.
What happened to me as a child was easy for me because I didn't fully appreciate what was going on, but for my parents it must have been the biggest shock of their lives. They both continued with their normal jobs – Dad worked really hard and was unable to get time off to come down to London for my royal command performance. So it was myself, Mam and Annette who stood on the platform of Bangor station waiting for the train to London. As I shivered in the wind, I became convinced that it was one of the coldest places anywhere in the world.
We stayed at the Royal Garden Hotel, right next to Kensington Palace. That evening, one of the Prince's equerries came to the hotel to explain what would happen. That's when the precision of it all hit me – everything was planned down to an exact time. Before I went to bed, I looked out of the window of my room. I could see policemen walking along the private path to the Palace, which was lit by the glow of these very old-fashioned lanterns. That was the path I would be taking the following evening.
The day of my special performance passed very quickly. Soon it was time to get dressed for the evening. I wore a pair of grey trousers, a white shirt and a red bow tie, much to my embarrassment as I look back on it now. Bow ties were something of a trademark of mine at the time, because the lady who looked after the wardrobe for a BBC Wales television series I had made had decided that I would wear a different-coloured one for each programme. I ended up with more than 20 of them in every embarrassing colour imaginable. Needless to say, they are no longer part of my stage wardrobe these days.
A Welsh businessman who lived in London, Simon Davies, offered to drive us to the Palace in his Rolls-Royce. By this stage, I was so nervous that I couldn't manage to open the car door. I sat in the front and sank deep into the massive leather seat. As we drew up to the first guard post outside Kensington Palace, a policeman came out. He was expecting us and said, 'On you go, Mr Jones.' We continued along the drive. The lanterns seemed to be a different colour from normal streetlamps, more like those old sulphur ones with an orange glow. It was all very Dickensian, very old London. We stopped at a second guard post and another policeman checked who we were, before waving us through. Eventually, we arrived at the back door of Kensington Palace. I was aware that we were going to a pretty awesome house.
The equerry whom we had met the night before greeted us at the door, along with the butler. He said, 'They're very excited about you coming. They've been talking about it all day.' I couldn't quite believe it – I was 13 and this was the future king. Why would he be excited about meeting me? Surely it should have been the other way around? Mam, Annette and I were whisked into the Prince and Princess's private living room. We sat there on our own waiting for them and I suppose that at that moment I was more nervous than at any other time in my career. Even Annette, who was always very level-headed, said, 'I can't believe we're really in their house.' It definitely was a home and nothing like the sort of stateroom that you might imagine; you could tell that it was a room that they actually used. There were sofas everywhere, photos of Prince William and Prince Harry as babies and pictures of the Prince and Princess wearing normal clothes. These were all shots that you would never see in the papers.
Moments after we had sat down, the door opened and Prince Charles walked in. He was so gracious and such a lovely man, particularly with Mam and Annette. The first thing he said was, 'You must have a drink.' Mam and Annette didn't know if he meant a cup of tea, a cup of coffee or wine. He must have sensed their confusion and I will never forget how he leaned forward, touched Mam's knee and said, 'You'd fancy a gin and tonic, wouldn't you?'
It broke the ice completely and everyone just relaxed. I was amazed that moments later a footman appeared with one of the largest gin and tonics I had ever seen and placed it in Mam's hand. Everything going on inside the room was obviously being noted and watched by someone outside and I was fascinated about how that worked.
Prince Charles explained that Princess Diana would be a little late because she had been swimming. At that time, she swam every night. When the Princess arrived, she still had wet hair from the pool. She gave me a kiss and curled up in a chair next to her husband. It was time for my performance.
I started with Handel's 'Where E'er You Walk'. After I had finished singing, they clapped; it seemed a little uncomfortable because it wasn't a proper concert and there were just the two of them sitting there in front of me. Prince Charles said, 'This doesn't seem right. I don't think we're going to clap any more, but just to let you know that it's brilliant. I love it.' I bowed for what must have been the tenth time because I felt that I had to – I was with royalty after all – and both the Prince and Princess told me that there was no need to keep on doing it. They reassured me that I could just relax and be myself, which was a real relief.
I sang for more than an hour, with nobody else in the room except my Mam, Annette and the Prince and Princess of Wales. My performance included Rod Stewart's 'Sailing' and the Beatles songs 'Hey Jude' and 'Yesterday', as well as Handel's 'Ombra Mai Fu'.
Finally the Prince said, 'You've done enough work. Come and sit down with us.' He told me that he preferred the Handel, while the Princess said that she liked the pop songs the best. The Prince seemed particularly interested in music, asking how the voice was going and whether I felt it was about to break.
As we were chatting, I knocked a glass of water off the table. I thought to myself that this was just the most dreadful thing I had ever done. My Mam panicked like mad, leapt up, went bright red and spluttered, 'Sorry! Sorry!' Diana jumped up, rubbed the wet carpet with her foot and said, 'Oh, don't worry. The boys do it in this room all the time.' It was a lovely thing to say to put us all at ease. I was just relieved not to have been thrown in the Tower.
I had met Diana before because we had both done some charity work for Barnardo's, the children's charity. Believe it or not, the TV presenter Anne Diamond, the Princess and I were the only clients of the same hairdresser – a Scotsman named Richard Dalton. The Princess and I would send short notes to each other, using Richard as a courier. They were just silly little notes – mine to her might say, 'Hi, how are you?' and she would then send one back saying, 'I heard you singing on the television, and it was great.'
Each time that I saw Diana, I always got a sense of her playful character. That evening in Kensington Palace she told me that she and the Prince had a present for me. Being my age, I couldn't wait to see what it was. But I think that she was even more excited than I was. She insisted that I opened it there and then. It was a framed photograph of both of them together, signed personally for me by them both.
After more than an hour and a half of chatting, we said our goodbyes and the Prince and Princess thanked me for coming. Simon Davies was sitting on the stairs outside with the equerry and the butler. He took us to his Rolls-Royce and said, 'You can't have an evening like this and just go back to the hotel, so I'm going to take you all for dinner at the Dorchester.'
I hadn't really taken in what I had just done. Mam was exhausted, but Annette felt the same as me, just in awe of what had happened to us. Lots of people met the Prince and Princess of Wales and lots of people had time with them, but to spend almost three hours in their living room was something I had never expected to do.
I had never been to the Dorchester before either. I didn't know which knife and fork to use because there were seven sets in front of us. The plates were huge and had tiny bits of food in the middle of them. The chef, Anton Mosimann, came up to the table to shake my hand.
It was all such an experience for me, but my life at the time was filled with huge contrasts. The next day I would be back at school and I was already looking forward to seeing my girlfriend again. I would never tell my school friends what I had been doing the day before. In many ways, I was leading two separate lives: my school life, which I really enjoyed with my friends and my girlfriend, and then this very special other life which gave me the added bonus of doing amazing things that were beyond the dreams of most teenagers. I always kept the two lives separate. It wasn't something Mam and Dad told me to do, I just worked it out for myself because it seemed the most natural thing to do.
After dinner at the Dorchester, we went back to the hotel and in true Welsh fashion, Mam and Annette had a nightcap while we relived what had happened. The next morning saw reality dawn as we went back home on the train to Bangor.
CHAPTER 2
ANGLESEY LIFE
I was born on 29 December 1970 at St David's Hospital in Bangor. It was a cold Christmas that year and the snow had started falling heavily on Boxing Day. The district nurse was concerned that the bad weather would prevent Mam reaching the hospital, so she was admitted early to the maternity ward. I came into the world by Caesarean section two days later. Mam wanted a boy and had even chosen my name. So the very first words that she heard when she came round from the anaesthetic were 'Aled's here'. As predicted, I was very heavy, weighing in at a whopping 9 lb 14 oz.
My Mam, Nêst, and my Dad, Derek, had moved to Anglesey, an island off the North Wales coast, a few years before I was born. We lived in a tiny village on the south side of the island called Llandegfan. It's the sort of place where everyone knows everyone else, with a post office, a convenience store and a tiny hairdresser. The village of Menai Bridge is just along the road where, as you might guess from the name, you will find the two bridges which link Anglesey to the rest of Wales. Menai Bridge is not a big place either, but it does have quite a few shops. Now, more than 30 years later, when I drive through on my way home, it still makes me smile that many of these shops are just the same as when I was a boy. There are a couple of Chinese takeaways and the first curry house arrived when I was 16 – a big event for me.
The most cosmopolitan part of the island is known as Millionaire's Row. It runs in a strip from Menai Bridge to another town called Beaumaris. It's here that big stars such as Roger Moore have owned houses over the years. The view out to sea is beautiful, absolutely stunning. When I was 18, I couldn't wait to leave the island, but now that I am a lot older and a little bit wiser, I realise just what a wonderful haven it is.
Anglesey is a very quiet place and life definitely moves at a much slower pace than in some other parts of the country. The people of Anglesey are very proud to be both Welsh and Welsh-speaking. Welsh was the only language I spoke until I was around five years old. We were taught totally in Welsh for the first few years at school, with English being taught as a second language.
The Jones family home was always a very happy house, with Dad and Mam both working only a short distance away. Both sets of grandparents lived close by and this group of people made my world a very secure and loving place.
Mam went back to work at the local primary school when I was just seven weeks old. My father's mother looked after me while Mam was working and would turn up every morning just before she went off to school. I called my grandparents Nain and Taid – the Welsh words for grandma and granddad. My maternal grandparents were known as Nain and Taid Caernarfon and I called my paternal grandparents Nain and Taid Llanwnda – with both sets being named after the places where they lived.
Once Mam had gone, Nain Llanwnda would then spend the rest of the day really spoiling me, while we constantly played all sorts of games. A particular favourite involved me placing a huge blackboard on Nain's knees, which I would then sit on top of with all of my teddies. Even though she was quite a big woman, she would end up being crushed under a mountain of soft toys. Nain was an incredibly kind person and a brilliant cook who loved her food. She filled my early years with laughter wherever we were together, whether it was at home, on the beach or out walking. I was very active as a small child and never managed to sleep fully through the night until I was three years old, although I did nap during the day with Nain Llanwnda, which probably explains it.
I have two particular memories of those early years, both of which involve food. Every afternoon, we would wait for Joe, the Polish bread man, to drive by in his white van. Without fail, Nain would buy me a currant bun. One time, I was on my tricycle waiting for the man when I did a wheelie and cut my head open on the wall. Nain was in a terrible state of panic and called Mam home from school. I was rushed off to the hospital to be stitched up. The scar on the back of my head is still with me today, and at the time I wore it proudly as a badge of courage. My second food-related memory concerns the very sweet tooth that I had developed. The absolute highlight of my day came at lunchtime when, as a special treat, Nain would give me a cube of raw jelly to chew on. I am sure that I can trace my love of sweet food back to this time, as one cube inevitably led to the whole pack disappearing into my stomach during the rest of the afternoon.
By the time I was two years old, my parents discovered that I had an uncanny knack of reproducing everyday sounds. I could harmonise with a sound and sing tunes with it in the same key. So if Mam was using a hairdryer, or the bath was running, I would make up a new melody around the sounds and rhythms. My parents tell me that this constant mimicking of noises was the first sign they saw that I was actively showing an interest in music. At around this time, my favourite television show was an Asian magazine programme broadcast on Sunday mornings. I would sit naked on a cushion in front of the television each week watching the programme and singing along to the music. The words meant absolutely nothing to me at all, but I was captivated by the tunes and would join in with the sitar melodies.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Aled Jones by Aled Jones, Darren Henley. Copyright © 2013 Aled Jones and Darren Henley. Excerpted by permission of John Blake Publishing Ltd.
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