ONE of Abergavenny's favourite sons talks about his adopted upbringing, meeting the Beatles, the tragic death of his daughter and his pride in his hometown. NIALL GRIFFITHS talks to Bryn Yemm.

*"I was born in Brynmawr but I was soon adopted by a couple in Abergavenny after my biological mother, who was Italian, decided to give me away.

She was standing at the bus station waiting to take me to the children's home in Cardiff, she was obviously going through hell, when she was told to give me to a Mary and Ivor Yemm.

An hour later she knocked on the door at 66 Tudor Street and this little Welsh woman opened the door to a stranger and her baby.

I was blessed to be from an adopted family, and even more blessed that they were a Salvation Army family.

Every Sunday I was made to go to Salvation Army, I used to complain and wanted to go fishing with the boys but that's where I got my musical inspiration from, the songsters of the Salvation Army bands.

When I was 13 my mother died from cancer at 40 years of age, and I remember it very well. She passed away in the middle room of the Cow Inn in Abergavenny.

Whenever I walk by I always stop, pause, look up, remember my mother and go about my business.

Growing up, there was a blonde haired girl with green eyes living at 1 Tudor Street, my future wife Ann, and she was a beautiful girl.

During the 1960s it was a great time for music in Abergavenny as the great promoter Eddie Tattersall was attracting the likes of Gene Vincent, The Hollies, The Yardbirds and of course the Beatles.

When they came to Abergavenny Town Hall on June 22, 1963, I was probably more popular than them at the time in the town as I was the local lad.

I was with them all night in the mayor's parlour, I remember sitting with Ringo Starr for hours.

Paul McCartney asked me where they were to play and when we went to check, there was a lot of activity so he said that 'we'd better go back'.

Their agent Brian Epstein was told by our mayor Jack Thurston that I was the local star and he invited me up to London but I didn't have the money - it was like asking me to go to New York.

Later, I turned professional at age 20 while working at Robert Price and began performing all over the UK.

I was away performing at the Beehive Grill in Watford once and when I came back Ann had moved our stuff into 66 North Street.

The number 66 is something that means a lot to me, having come from 66 Tudor Street and into 66 North Street.

The Holy Bible is also made up of 66 books and as a man of great faith it really is a beautiful thing to me and I think that these 'God incidents' helped get me to where I am.

I made my first record Jubilee Party, in 1977 with the help of my best friend Kingsley Ward, of Rockfield Studios.

He produced it and I sold it out of the back of the car and I was already out there selling it like you wouldn't believe.

What followed was the biggest key to getting me off the ground, and that was Woolworths, which had 1,500 stores nationwide.

I would perform in their stores frequently, sometimes making thousands of pounds over the course of a few days.

The Woolworths head office at the time had six Welsh guys working there and they looked out for me, but I put a lot of effort into what I did.

About 13 years ago, after a gig in Cyprus, I was approached by a tour operator called Takis Shacalis who asked me to be in charge of entertainment on his new cruise ship.

I didn't want to go cruising, but I had a flash in my mind when he told me where it was going - Israel, the holy city.

We took thousands of people across the Mediterranean and I remember people coming up to me years later saying they remembered those tours.

In 2003, we sailed to America and we ended up setting up at Port Canaveral in Florida, which proved to be a huge success.

I had my feet in America and I made a lot of connections but we kept our home in Abergavenny, it was a lot of work going back and forth with family but we had to.

While in Florida I was co-opted onto the board of directors of Variety, the children's charity and I became involved with the Cardiff branch when I returned to the UK.

It was through Variety that I got to work the the great Welsh comedian Wyn Calvin and got to meet the likes of Sir Gareth Edwards and Max Boyce through our charity ventures.

I'm very proud of the business I'm in. If anybody's ever in trouble and want to raise money, Variety are often the first that they come to.

In March 2014, we lost our daughter Tina to cancer, we lost our baby and it was beyond pain.

It was very difficult because in my business you're supposed to be lifting people, but it was difficult.

After we lost her, both of us were so devastated and I never did anything for well over a year

A friend of mine, John David, a songwriter from Cardiff, gave me a song called 'Safe and Sound' and the words just spoke to me.

It snapped me out of my grief and now I've got two albums set to come out soon.

Earlier this year when me and Ann performed at a fundraising concert for the Eisteddfod in Abergavenny it was beyond special.

We performed an 'in memoriam' piece, originally for my baby Tina, but we wanted to also pay tribute to our town and those that we've lost along the way.

As you get older you have a different outlook on life when tragedies such as the deaths of friends and families happen.

Getting up onto that stage, where I started with the Salvation Army, it felt like the wheel had turned full circle.