Cilla Black was 'icon with a common touch', Tom Jones tells ITV News

Video report by ITV News Presenter Mary Nightingale

Cilla Black's "common touch" kept her in the hearts of the British public, singer Tom Jones has told ITV News.

Speaking to Mary Nightingale as he paid his respects to the much-loved entertainer, Jones said: "She never lost a common touch - she came from a working class background and she never forgot it.

"She loved people, she genuinely loved people. And people recognised that, you see. you can't fool them, you can't fool the public, not for long anyway. "

The Liverpool singer turned Saturday night entertainer was laid to rest at St Mary's Church in Woolton where she married manager Bobby Willis.

Sir Tom, who joined other famous friends including Cliff Richard and Paul O'Grady at the funeral, said that her love of people and bubbly personality kept her in the public's affection for more than half a century.

Her "bubbly personality" enabled her to be an icon of Saturday night television, Sir Tom added.

And 51 years after her first single, Anyone Who Had A Heart, was released for the first time, she is back in the charts again.