BBC News Online: UK: Wales

Tom's urgent call over old phone box

The superstar shipped the kiosk to California from the Welsh valley street corner where he spent hours calling his girlfriends.

It was inside the old-fashioned call box he first chatted to his future wife Linda - and later discovered he was a father.

Years later he paid £50,000 for the box to be flown to his plush Los Angeles mansion and placed beside his swimming pool.

But when his house was sold to Oscar-winning film star Nicolas Cage he forgot the box - and now he wants it back.

Jones, aged 59, revealed his love affair with the box started 40 years ago on the corner of Laura Street in Treforest, near Pontypridd, south Wales. The singer, real name Tommy Woodward, said: "We did not have a phone in our house back then so I spent hours every night in the call box.

"Most of my conversations in the box were to Linda and nearly 40 years on we are still together.

"It was a call in that very box that I learned I had become a father and once when it rang in the states I found out I was a grandfather.

Flown over

"When I left for America I had it flown over and cemented into the ground beside my swimming pool."

American actor Nicolas Cage, aged 35, bought Tom's house but quickly lifted the British box out of the ground.

Now rather than let his box rust away Tom has been calling Cage to ask for it to be sent back to his house in Wales.

He added: "Nic Cage has had a lot of work done and I heard that he has pulled it out of the ground - I want it back."

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