Tony Cummings gives the first of a two part report on the life and beliefs of veteran UK musician, actor and broadcaster PAUL JONES

Also around this time Paul was beginning to realise that he was no longer a hardcore atheist. "My attitude had always been that I was really too intelligent to become a Christian. I thought Christianity was a sort of crutch for people who were unable to cope." The singer/actor had become very interested in art and spent considerable time looking at many of the old masters in art galleries. "I began to see in some of the pictures spiritual qualities that were more than just good art. God is amazing - he deals with you where you are. He met me at my level. I started talking to myself about spiritual things."

Paul Jones and Fiona Hendley

Paul had all the gigs he could manage with The Blues Band, his regular appearances at the national Theatre and work as a TV presenter. Not surprisingly, it became too much. He comments, "The Blues Band and the National Theatre had just got too much for me and I collapsed - obviously something had to go." After a farewell album, appropriately titled 'Bye-Bye Blues' and released in 1983, The Blues Band were laid to rest. But many things were changing in Paul's life, not least his spiritual life. Fiona describes the next stage of her and Paul's spiritual journey to journalist Derek Green. "I just felt there was a hole in my life that needed filling, and I realise now that only God could fill that space." One hot day Fiona strolled into a London church - just to get a break from the heat and to rest awhile. It happened to be All Souls, Langham Place. "I just picked up a Bible," she explains, "and I found myself reading John chapter three verse 16, where it says that God so loved the world that he gave his only Son. . . I was just blown away by that Scripture, where it went on to say that anyone who believes will have eternal life." She discussed the event with Paul and said she felt she would like to go to that church for a service. To her amazement, Paul said he wanted to go with her.

Both Paul and Fiona were hugely impressed with the welcome they found at All Souls. At the door the minister Michael Lawson invited them to his home so they could discuss their questions. They accepted the invitation and this was the start of their journey into a real Christian experience. They both realised that they were very unhappy in their existing relationships and felt that their love for each other was growing. So they left their partners and moved into a flat together. "At the time it seemed right," Fiona explains. "Neither of us felt the need to make a commitment to each other in marriage at the time - we had both been hurt in previous relationships and felt that there was always the chance something better might turn up." They continued to spend time with Mike Lawson and their interest in spiritual things gradually grew. Then one day in 1984 Paul and Fiona had a telephone call from Cliff Richard, who invited them to listen to Luis Palau at White City.

Says Paul, "Cliff wasn't singling us out. I believe he was just being obedient to God because I think that the Lord told him to get as many people in show business as he possibly could to go and hear Luis Palau. And indeed I think he invited something like a gross of people - disc jockeys, singers, musicians, actors, all kinds of people. And large quantities of them did go actually, partly on the generous basis of being offered a dinner afterwards. And basically what happened was Luis was his usual evangelical thrilling best and Fiona said to me, 'Well, we'd be absolute lunatics not to take this opportunity.'" They both felt they wanted to respond to the invitation to go to the front to accept Jesus Christ as their Saviour, but they discussed it briefly and both felt they needed to talk first. "We realised that we were living such selfish lives," Fiona explains. "We were not committed to each other or to God." At the end of the service Paul asked Fiona to marry him and she agreed. Soon after, they both made a firm commitment to Jesus Christ.

Remembers Paul, "The first thing we did was to ring up the church and ask if we could get married and they said yes, that would be fine. How soon could you do it? So we got that sorted and obviously we started to take our Christianity seriously. Actually, I had an idea about leaving show business completely because I suddenly started to see the kind of life that I had been leading as insupportable really. And I thought, Well, the best thing I can do is just leave show business. I'm not saying that I was at the extreme end of sex, drugs and rock and roll. But nonetheless I'd been living a life of sin. There's no two ways about it. Rebellion of every political kind really. I'd been smoking pot and womanising and stuff and I think, cheating, you know the sort of thing - not being too scrupulous about finance. Let's put it that way. I just thought well, I can't live like this."

Paul's idea that he would have to leave the world of showbiz was challenged at a meeting he had with All Soul's Michael Lawson. "Michael asked me what I would do and I said I like books and reading and I could get a job as a librarian. Michael pointed out that if God had wanted to save a librarian, he would have saved one. The point was not lost on me! I realised I was to employ the gifts God had given me and so I went back to work."

*Part 2 of this article will cover Paul's continuing musical career both with The Blues Band, The Manfreds and as a solo artist and the establishment of Paul's ongoing speaking and music ministry with Fiona.