After marrying in 1957, when both were 16 years old, Jones and his wife appeared set for a life as an ordinary young couple bringing up their son Mark until the It's Not Unusual star was spotted by future manager Gordon Mills in 1963. The couple's life changed entirely as Jones became one of the 1960s' most popular musicians.

The Welsh star reveals he coped with fame better than his wife, whose retreat into herself led to depression.

"I've realised she's had a depression since she was young," Jones told Britain's Sunday Times magazine. "She's always had a touch of it. Getting married to her, and having a child, and being in a house in that kind of environment, she didn't mind it because I don't think she really enjoyed getting out and about."

Jones has admitted to a string of infidelities at the height of his fame in the 1960s, but says of his wife, "She's the most important thing in my life."

Indeed, the singer tells the magazine that if his wife had died during battles with cancer and emphysema, he would have given up singing.