Prisoner Charles Bronson can't seem to stop singing Tom Jones songs since losing his bid for freedom at his much-publicised public parole hearing last month. Speaking on the phone to his long-time friend and former gangster-turned-author Dave Courtney, the 70-year-old inmate could be heard bursting into an "emotional" rendition of The Green Green Grass of Home.
A number one hit for Pontypridd singing legend Jones in 1966, the old country music standard tells of a prisoner on death row awaiting his inevitable fate. In a phone call to Courtney earlier this week Bronson dedicated his rendition to Rhyl-born Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in the UK.
Executed in 1955 for murdering her lover, her case would play a major part in the movement to abolish the death penalty here in Britain. "She was a beautiful girl and they snapped her neck," said Bronson, whose mum Eira is from Aberystwyth.
"When you think of some of these tragic cases from the past we should bow our heads in shame." And the infamous jailbird also belted out another song by Sir Tom - "one of the greats" - in a different conversation with Courtney following his parole refusal.
On that occasion he sang Please Release Me which, although made famous by Engelbert Humperdinck in 1967, had originally been recorded by Jones - although his version ended up being shelved.
Courtney described Bronson as 'an advert for how people should behave when life kicks them in the b****ks'. "It's unbelievable," he said. "Even after what you've been told (regarding your parole) you come on here to sing me a song."
Bronson replied that he learned how to be resilient from his late father, Joe. "Whenever anything bad happened my old dad used to say, 'Dust yourself off and get back up, son," he said, before referencing his darkest days behind bars - namely his stint at the infamous Broadmoor high-security psychiatric hospital.
"When I look back on some of the things I did I think, 'Bloody hell, did that really happen'? But it's like I always say - a man's never lived until he goes to bed in a straitjacket,' said Bronson, who changed his surname to Salvador in 2014 in tribute to the artist Salvador Dali.
"I've been put in boxes and padded rooms wearing body belts but I still f*****g sing. I go to bed laughing and wake up smiling - I know I should be bitter and twisted, but I'm not."
Adding that the suit he wore to his recent hearing was being "kept safe and ready for next time," Bronson revealed he's most looking forward to having a "lovely big fry-up" when he's finally set free.
"I can't wait to get out and go to an old greasy spoon cafe," he said. "I'll bung them £50 and say, 'Give me your best double bubble'. I do love a mushroom, you know."
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