Cliff Morgan

Presenter0:00

This download is the only extract the BBC has of this edition of Desert Island Discs. The presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:08

Cliff, what part of Wales do you come from? I come from uh the Rhonda Valley in South Wales, from a little village called Trebanog, the three hills around the top of the valley. Yes, this is the coal mining area, of course. The coal mining area, where the sour hard toilet that pit in the old days obviously had an influence on everyone who was born there.

Cliff Morgan0:23

Never

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than everyone who was brought up and read that.

Cliff Morgan0:26

You went to s

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School in South Wales? I did in Tonnerival Grammar School. Tonerival, the uh the field of the smithy. There was an old smithy in the town. This was a grammar school. Coeducational, I'm very happy to say. A good rugger school?

Presenter0:37

Yes, it was um a a Cumming Rugger School. It was very new. It only nineteen twenty two it was opened and uh I was the first international from the first senior international. Yes. And then you went to university?

Cliff Morgan0:44

I've seen you in the

Cliff Morgan0:45

And then

Presenter0:46

Yes, kicked out of there actually after because I I missed an exam. I went off to play for my first game for Cardiff at Cambridge against Cambridge University and I missed um my exam. When I got back I couldn't do the resit the exam and get a grant and we had no dough so I couldn't go back.

Cliff Morgan0:48

Yeah because I

Cliff Morgan0:55

I mean

Presenter1:02

So I was thrown out of university. What did you do? Uh I went into industry, uh steel wire ropes in Carliffe, went through the business, splicing on the floor, cleaning up the muck off the floor, uh having tea with the boys out of Billy Cannes at seven thirty in the morning. Yes. And then was sent to Ireland.

Presenter1:19

to uh manage a new business there, built it from the ground. It was just a big old garage. And we made the first wear rope I don't know what this boss this is in the history of Ireland. Boy, that's something.

Cliff Morgan1:29

Bitbox

Cliff Morgan1:30

Yeah.

Presenter1:31

And have you always played at Firehalf?

Presenter1:34

Well I was uh I played it on at hooker to start with. Did you? Yes, that's why I was so rough I think. I was a tough little devil, you know. And um I played on the wing after into the centre then to fly half.'Cause my old games master Ned Gribble said that once you've played out on the wing and you're playing at fly half, you know how damn awful it is to be on the wing without the ball and you'll never be terribly selfish. And also on the wing you don't get involved in the hurly burley'cause I was tiny at the time. And you learn the game by

Cliff Morgan1:39

Do you have it?

Cliff Morgan1:52

New level.

Cliff Morgan1:59

And you

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being there, but not completely part of a match, which is quite a sound theory, perhaps.

Cliff Morgan2:04

There was one famous game in which Cardiff beat the New Zealanders. You were mixed up in that.

Presenter2:10

1953 the All Blacks at Cardiff with the great Bob Scott at fullbacks, team which was beaten everybody and I remember that game not only because we won it but because everybody in the crowd seemed when they shouted to put an extra two yards on your kick to touch. When you were running through the gap you felt 58,000 Welshmen pulling you through it. Yes. And this was the only game I ever remember where the chants and the shouting started at the beginning and didn't finish until the end of the game. How many times did you play for Welsh? Well the book says 29 but you you never know it's funny you know Roy. The only one that's significant is your first when you put the jersey on for the first time. The smell of a new jersey. And as captain? One season in 1956 when we won the championship. Yes. Did you get the Triple Crown as well? I know we were the Irish as usual stopped us winning the Triple Crown. Jack Kyle dropped a great great gold to beat us. And you don't mind losing to you a game when somebody who is better than you beats you. I think this is one of the great things about the game.

Cliff Morgan3:09

Mm-hmm.

Cliff Morgan3:10

You also were in a number of British touring teams at the British Lions. Where did you go?

Presenter3:14

South Africa in 1955 were the Lions what I consider the best team I ever played in. It had toughness up front, it had polish and flair behind.

Cliff Morgan3:19

Yes.

Presenter3:23

Great side, the Druid Test Series for the first time ever against the South Africans. Yes, you captained that team for part of the team. I captained that team for a long time on the Tor because Robin Thompson was injured a lot and I was next in command after the two appointed people. I was the unofficial captain. But in the Test match in Pretoria, which when Dickie Jeeps claimed that I threw everything at them but the Bible in my pre-match talk when he said he was like a latter-day Lloyd George to inspire us, that was the test.

Cliff Morgan3:28

I caught in the

Cliff Morgan3:47

To inspire us. That was the test. Which is the game you like to replay in memory? Which was the most exciting game you remember?

Presenter3:54

Uh without any doubt, twenty three points to twenty two, one point the difference at seven thousand feet in Ellis Park, Johannesburg, temperature eighty two in the shade, one hundred thousand people in that extraordinary torrid bowl of Ellis Park. And to win by one point in a test scoring all those points is almost impossible. But I remember that because when you're a long way from home

Presenter4:15

I think it's lovely to be successful. When you're home, it's nice. When you're a long way and your family at home are listening and wondering how you've done. And I'm sure my mother cried and my father was proud. And that's, I think, what life's about.

Cliff Morgan4:24

No, that's

Cliff Morgan4:27

Howell Davis gave you your first

Presenter4:29

Introduction to radio and television. He did. He just picked me up. He took a chance. This is what greatness is about, I think. He took a chance on a fellow he didn't even know. He'd heard me doing certain things. But he took a chance on me. And he had this extraordinary ability to pick on something and say, how many of us can say, there's something wrong with this programme. There's something wrong with that. But he had this great art of saying, this is what's wrong. Put that right, and you've got something. Yes. What was the first job you did? I produced unintroduced, you know, everything in those days, a sports programme, 12 and a half minutes every Friday night. And then he put me in the regions in those days you could do things like music programmes. I produced the International Festival of Music from Schlangotlen, dancing from Schlangotlen, and lots of various programmes, which gives you a a broad outlook on what the the whole art of communication and broadcasting is about, I feel.

Cliff Morgan5:01

Yeah.

Presenter5:18

And then eventually you were doing Sportsview and Grand Stand. Grandstand and Sportsview in London. I came to London. He wanted me to come for experience, which is good. And I did that. And the time during the Olympics in Tokyo, which is a very exciting time.

Cliff Morgan5:20

Grandstand

Cliff Morgan5:26

Yeah.

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Yeah.

Cliff Morgan5:32

Mm-hmm.

Presenter5:32

You were editor-in-chief? Yes, I was editor in London. I was in London at the receiving end, as it were. The first time pictures had come across on a satellite, the miracle of satellites, from Tokyo up to SimCon 3, pop down to California, across to Montreal, and across to Hamburg. And there, ten different nations taking it simultaneously, the pictures. That day's pictures from Tokyo. Which is then a miracle, actually.

Cliff Morgan5:54

Yeah.

Presenter5:56

Do you prefer producing or doing the job actually in front of the craft? I think appearing uh uh is the least satisfying of all the uh different facets of broadcasting. Producing is where the excitement is. Stuck in a dubbing theater, putting the nice edges on a film, a nice bit of music, or doing that. No one sees it, but you in your heart know that this is what the craft is about, I think.

Cliff Morgan5:58

Rob the pen.

Cliff Morgan6:16

Then you had a couple of years with one of the commercial companies.

Presenter6:19

Is producing a current affairs programme. Yeah, this week. I was very proud of that. I think that was the most exciting part of my television life. I loved it because I rubbed shoulders with the greatest reporters in the world of television: James Cameron, Robert Key, Alastair Burnett. And I felt then that you were doing something proving yourself. That it doesn't matter whether it's sport or religion or politics, that television is about a craft, it's about communication. Whatever the subject is, the same broad principles apply. And now.

Presenter6:48

You're all back with the BBC.

Cliff Morgan6:50

Uh

Presenter6:50

Backwards

Cliff Morgan6:50

The BBC? Yes? Seeing Rugger from the commentator's box, as you do now, after such a distinguished career on the field, how does Rugger look?

Presenter6:57

Uh Much better than in my day. We were slightly tatty in my day. We played it off the top of our heads. No one is to think. In fact, I reprimanded Ray Prother in Paris as captain one day and said, for God's sake, you know, don't hang on to the ball. And he said, listen, you can't expect us forwards to think and shove. But now they think and shove. They're all intelligent and bright, so they must be more difficult to play. Well, it's different from my day.

Cliff Morgan7:22

Shoving away. As soon as the word tangled, you just put your weight in it.

Presenter7:23

So

Presenter7:26

I'm sure it's much better and and I think more difficult. So someone who plays now must be a better player than any of us who were ten years ago,'cause the game is more advanced.