Sorry may be the hardest word for many people, but Sir Tom Jones has finally apologised to the woman who has stood by him for half a century while he earned his reputation as a career ladies’ man.

While Sir Tom does not quite say “sorry”, he does tell his wife Linda that he knows he has caused her pain.

The Road is one of the songs on Sir Tom’s new album 24 Hours that he has written himself and the first he has publicly dedicated to the woman he has been with since they were childhood sweethearts in the South Wales mining town of Pontypridd.

The apology may not have come easily, but the lyrics speak for themselves. He sings how he: “Felt the weakness, when I was strong,/ Held sweetness, when it was wrong.”

Times Archive, 1972: Tom Jones at the London Palladium

Jones amply proved that he is still bringing a substantial flutter to the hearts of millions of young mothers and a tremble to many a more mature female knee

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He says he has seen her crying “tears of rain” and left her “shattered on the ground”, but promises: “The road always returns to you, and my love, it still belongs to you.”

The singer, 68, made famous by hits such as It’s Not Unusual, the Green Green Grass of Home and Delilah and for whipping his largely female audiences into a sexually charged frenzy, is at an age when most of his contemporaries are on pensions and going to bed with nothing more exciting than a mug of Horlicks.

His new album is his first of original material for more than 15 years and he is back on the road promoting it while Linda stays at home in Los Angeles.

He said: “My wife is a quiet person. She doesn’t like parties and I wouldn’t want to force her into that. I respect her privacy.

“I hope the song straightens things out. It was almost like going into a confessional box. We still have the same basic feelings and the same values and we are both Welsh. We come from the same place, so I can’t bulls*** my wife,” he said in an interview with Wales on Sunday.

In 1987 he paid £50,000 to a model who brought a paternity suit against him, and also had a long affair with Mary Wilson, of the Supremes.

But he said that his wife did not see herself as long-suffering. “We both came from working-class backgrounds. With all the trimmings that came with my career, she always sees the positive side of it.”

Since 1965 Sir Tom, he was knighted in 2006, has sold more than 100 million records and built up a fortune estimated at £170 million.

The couple’s only son, Mark, is Sir Tom’s manager and he is hoping his father will emulate the success of Johnny Cash and Neil Diamond who both made career-defining albums late in their musical journeys.

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