Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
An entertainer and songwriter from Wales.
On the island
Eight records
The First Time Ever I Saw Your FaceFavourite
as a songwriter, if ever I could choose one song that I wish I'd written, I wish I'd have written this song, because it stands up as a poem as well, some superb lines in it
I've always loved traditional Irish music and ... a song one of the loveliest of all traditional Irish songs
my first conscious memory of comedy, which I've drifted into, and I've always loved a humor of observation. And to me, the greatest comedian of of life's observation was the great radio comic, Al Reid.
The Crowd at Cardiff Arms Park
this is a song, well it's not a song, it's our anthem, the Welsh national anthem. ... I think again when my spirits are down on this island, you've cast me away on. I think I'd like to hear the crowd at Cardiff Arms Park singing Hern Laden Hadai, Land of My Fathers.
I've always loved reggae music ... my all-time reggae favourite
my particular favourite traditional Welsh folk song is a song called Hiraith, which is means longing. And maybe the people that feel it most are those away from home.
I deliberated uh very much which Welsh tenor I would choose. But I thought rather than spare any embarrassment I've gone for perhaps the greatest tenor in the world, certainly my favourite
I thought maybe I would need of in the need of spiritual uplifting after being on this island for so long. I remember singing in choirs when I was much younger and and thrilling to the sound of Hanel's Messiah
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:33I believe your father was killed in a mining accident. How old were you at that time?
I hadn't been born actually. It was it was two weeks or three weeks before I was um actually born, so obviously I never knew my father.
Presenter asks
3:00Do you think you had a happy childhood?
I never wanted for anything. We had a very we are a very close family. Some people say to me that uh or it's been put to me that the entertainer in me is nothing more than the cry of the fatherless child. But I don't think that's quite true because I never saw a need, I must admit, because of the closeness of my family and they all rallied around and my uncles and my grandfather especially was a great influence in me and he became my father figure. So I never saw any great need of love and generally it was a very yeah very happy childhood.
Presenter asks
4:27Despite family tragedy, when the time came, you went down the pit yourself?
Yes, not through choice. ... It was the last place my mother wanted me to go, the last place. ... Fifteen. ... But there was no money coming into the home, obviously, so I had to go to work. And I tried apprenticeships in various engineering factories, but there was no way I could get uh work anywhere. They would no one would take me on'cause I had no qualifications. So I finally got an apprenticeship with the with the National Coal Board.
The keepsakes
The book
Laurie Lee
it's only a little book ... it had a great impression on me when it was sent to me when I was very low at one time ... the title, Being on an Island, it says, I can't stay long
The luxury
Oil painting equipment (easels, canvases, paints)
I've always wanted to dabble in oils ... I would take whatever it needs to paint with oils, easels and canvases ... Paint the dawn of my island
Presenter asks
7:52What was your first appearance as a solo performer in front of an audience?
Well, going back to the Astel Vodai, the first public performance was as a again as a child in um an Estado, which is a a singing cultural festival we have in Wales. And I was reciting a poem Called the Squirrel ... and I went on stage and with my clenched hands ... and I started off. How we were. And that's all I remembered. He went completely blank. ... I was never allowed on the stage after I and that's true, I was never allowed, I was never encouraged till about fourteen, fifteen years later, such as the shame
Presenter asks
16:13When was it that you decided you could come up out of the pit and be a professional entertainer?
Pressure of work, I think. I went actually from the colliery after about six years to work in a an engineering factory and it was then I left to be a full-time singer. And I didn't want to go. At all. I had terrible trouble getting time off work. But it was heartbreaking to say I couldn't be on television, I couldn't appear on this television but'cause I was afternoons.
Presenter asks
21:16Tell us about Opportunity Knocks.
I was a disaster, an absolute disaster. That's another occasion when my mother disowned me. ... I went on again, singing when I song I wrote actually. But in the confines of studio which I'd never seen before, To an audience that obviously didn't know me and given two minutes, fifty seconds. ... Oh, it was heartbreaking and well, I think you must know television techniques to to establish yourself in two minutes, fifty seconds. ... And I wasn't really good enough anyway.
“Welsh people by nature are nostalgic and uh we tend to love sad melancholy things. So some of my songs I've chosen are sad songs and songs of longing.”
“I'm a firm believer that the first three minutes on stage determine how you're going to get over the next 30.”
“I experienced great not defeat, but um the agonies of failure for the first time and when that happens, either you just finish or it gives you renewed strength. And looking back now, it was a good thing that happened for me at that time, and it made me even more determined to swallow longer and sharper swords.”