However, the superfan – who has spent tens of thousands on memorabilia and has travelled the world to see the star perform – has been left heartbroken because he has not managed to get his hands on tickets to Saturday’s Jersey Style Awards, which she is due to attend.
‘All my friends can’t believe I’m not going,’ the 77-year-old said.
‘The staff at the supermarket, my bank, my GP, none of them can believe it because they know how much I like her. If anybody should be at the event it should be me.
‘I never dreamt she would come back to Jersey and when I found out she was I just knew I needed to be there. I’m the greatest fan living in Jersey. I must be.’
All the tickets to the Island’s first Style Awards – at which Dame Shirley is due to be inducted into the ‘Style Hall of Fame’ – are sold out but Mr Welch is first on the waiting list if anyone should cancel.
Mr Welch, who lives with his wife, Maureen, in St Brelade, said he has been to so many of the Goldfinger star’s concerts he has lost count and owns every CD she has released. He also has items of her clothing, photos and even handwritten letters that she has sent him thanking him for the gifts he has sent over the years.
Every year the Islander sends the star a box of Welsh teabags on her birthday. He is also in regular contact with her PA in Monte Carlo and in a 20-year-old scrapbook has a carnation flower the superstar handed him on stage as well as blue feathers that had fallen from her cloak which he collected from the ground.
The Islander’s love for the singer began aged 17 when he heard Dame Shirley sing for the first time.
He said: ‘I just loved her voice as soon as I heard it.
‘The first show I went to see was in Birmingham in 1958. It was my friend’s birthday and I took him with me to see the show.
‘We stood for hours in the rain after the show and a security guard came out and said we were allowed to meet Shirley because there were only a few of us that had waited and she wanted to say thank you. We went into her dressing room and I asked the security guard if we could have a picture with her but he said “no”. Shirley heard and said of course we could and I still have that photo to this day.’
Mr Welch has seen the star perform in Jersey twice before but is determined to get a ticket to Saturday’s show. He said it might be his last opportunity to see her in the Island.
‘I got a text from my friend saying: “Look who is in the Island” when the news was released,’ he said. ‘I got straight on the phone to Shirley’s PA in Monte Carlo and asked her if it was true. Within half an hour she rang me back and said “yes” and I knew then I needed to get a ticket.
‘I don’t think she will come to Jersey again in my lifetime – I’m running out of time.’
