I dedicate my song today posthumously to my dear old friend, the late William John Charles C.B.E. (27/12/31 to 21/02/04) who played football for Leeds United and later in his career for Juventus in Italy. When John died in February 2004, he was rated by many as having been the greatest all-round footballer ever to come from Britain. He was equally adept as either a forward or defender due to his strength, pace, technique, vision and having the eye for a goal.
He is included in the ‘Football League 100 Legends’ and was inducted into the ‘Football Hall of Fame’. One of the most significant aspects that led to him being colloquially called ‘The Gentle Giant’ ( Il Gigante Buono – ‘The Gentle Giant’) was that during his 25-year playing career, he was never cautioned or sent off, due to his philosophy of never kicking or intentionally hurting opposing players. Every inch of his 6 ft 2 inches stature represented football as it should be played. John came from a very talented Welsh family and his brother, Mel Charles and nephew, Jeremy Charles, also represented Wales, as did John. His grandson, Jake represented Wales at youth level and plays professionally today.
My song today is ’16 Tons’. This song was written by Merle Travis about a coal miner, based on life in the mines in Kentucky. The song was first released in July 1947 and became a gold record. A 1955 version recorded by Tennessee Ernie Ford reached Number 1 in the ‘Billboard Hot 100’ charts, while another version by Frankie Laine was introduced in Europe in 1956 in competition to Ford’s version.
In 1957, John Charles was transferred to Juventus in Italy, for the world record transfer fee of GBP 65 000. With Juventus, John Charles won three Italian league championships and was voted ‘Footballer of The Year’ in 1958. The same year as John Charles was voted ‘Footballer of the Year’, he had another world record. He became the first-ever footballer to release a record that would reach the Number 1 spot on the Italian hit list. Then in 1997, he was invited to record ‘16 Tons’(https://bit.ly/2QMBunI ).
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Following his retirement from football, John Charles became the landlord of the New Inn public house on Elland Road, Churwell, Leeds; a public house which later was also managed by another Leeds United player and Wales international, Byron Stevenson.
In January 2004 he suffered a heart attack shortly before an interview for Italian television and required the partial amputation of one foot for circulation reasons before he returned to Britain. He died in Pinderfields Hospital, Wakefield, West Yorkshire, on the 21st of February, 2004. His widow, Glenda, bequeathed his ashes to the City of Swansea.
Between 1990 and 2004, I wrote dozens of books for children and young persons and raised £200,000 profit from their sales, which was given to charitable causes. On the coat tail of the masses of publicity I received from the Yorkshire press and media of television and radio, I began inviting famous names and celebrities into Yorkshire schools to read from my books. I started with local celebrities in 1990 and then quickly progressed to national celebrities in 1991. By 1994, I was receiving praise and support from many national famous names and international figures from church, state, screen, sport, space, stage, film, politics, and even royalty agreed to read my books publicly in special school assemblies, libraries, and disabled centres.
By the New Millennium over 860 national and international famous names had read from my books in Yorkshire schools and even the late Princess Diana and Nelson Mandela had praised my work, along with the Chief Inspector of British Schools for Ofsted who had told the Guardian that my writing was ‘high-quality literature’ after reading from one of my books in a West Yorkshire Primary School.
After having received such high endorsement of what I was doing and writing about, it became easier for me to attract the highest and the best in the land from royalty to film stars like Princess Anne, the Earl and Countess of Harewood and film stars like the great Norman Wisdom. Timothy West, Christopher Timothy, Dora Bryan, Rosemary Leach, etc etc.
It often took a long time between sending out the initial invite to read, a celebrity reader’s acceptance and the eventual arrangements for the venue and date to be agreed upon, that it was not unusual to take up to a full year from start to finish of the process. Occasionally, due to unavoidable change of circumstances, a planned venue would need to be re-arranged at short notice.
In late 1992, I wrote to the English dancer, singer, entertainer and television presenter, Roy Castle, and invited him to visit a Yorkshire school as the celebrity reader of one of my children’s books called ‘Maw’, and he readily agreed. Roy said that we would work out arrangements in due course. In March 1992, Roy was diagnosed with lung cancer and was told it would likely prove terminal, and because of operations and time in hospital between then and his death in September 1994, it was necessary to take a rain check.
On the day of my book publication of ‘Maw’, the great footballer John Charles agreed to stand in for Roy Castle and he read to school children in ‘R.M. Grills Middle School’, off Windybank Estate in Hightown, Liversedge. This gentle giant reading a book on the theme of ‘bullying’ was an ideal substitute celebrity for Roy. After that reading, which proved a huge success, John read for me in a disabled centre in Dewsbury and helped me with several charitable fixtures I had organised. We became good friends over the next seven years before he died and I visited him in his home at Birstall on many occasions and also had a few pints with him in the pub he managed, the ‘New Inn’ on the way to Leeds.
I choose as my song to sing today John, the song you recorded. I don’t know if they sing up in heaven, John, but if they do, I know which number you’ll be belting out.
Love and peace Bill xx