Interview: Eddy Temple-Morris

 

Eddy Temple-Morris is a broadcaster, who you’ll be able to listen to every weekday between 10am-1pm on Virgin Radio. Eddy is also patron of mental health charity My Black Dog. Here, he talks exclusively to Cymranian about his annual childhood visits to Iran, racism in the 1970s and introducing the Stereophonics at a concert which was a stone’s throw away from where he was born.

When did you first realise you were ‘Cymranian’?

Pretty early on. When I first started speaking I spoke a mixture of English and Farsi. It took me a while to figure out they were two separate languages, but once I did, then I realised that I was bilingual. The bi-cultural thing happened a bit later. My parents took me/us to visit my paternal grandparents every Boxing Day. They lived in Raglan House on Westgate Street and door of their apartment was literally behind the goalposts at Cardiff Arms Park. You get a sense of being a bit Welsh when you hear that place singing! My grandmother was English, but my grandfather, Sir Owen Temple-Morris, was a High Court judge on the Welsh circuit and at one time the MP for Cardiff. He was a South Wales boy through and through and very proud of his culture and heritage. He made sure I knew right from wrong when it came to rugby and I’ve been a Wales supporter my whole life.

The Iranian part of my equation I became aware of very quickly, probably more so than the Welsh side, because we spent every summer in Iran and I really felt immersed in that culture much more. I’m the eldest and the most Iranian looking of my siblings.

When I was 13 I became painfully aware that I wasn’t British when I was dumped in the abusive atmosphere of an English public school in the 1970s, Malvern College, where on the first day I was told to “fuck off home you Paki bastard”. Ironically, by a Welsh boy, Dave Davies, whom I became friends with in the years to come.

How ‘normal’ has being Cymranian become to you? Did being Cymranian mean something different during your childhood compared to how it does during your adulthood?

I knew I was not in any way normal. I refer to dear Dave Davies’s ‘welcome’ on my first day at lessons. Racism was rampant in the UK in those days. I was called every name under the sun at school and out of it. Growing up in and around Hereford in the late seventies was not fun for a brown kid. Me and my friend Adé were the darkest people in the city at that time and we’re reminded of this fact when we went out together. We would just be walking, minding our own business when a brick would break into pieces next to us, having been hurled by skinhead kids in burgundy Harrington jackets, yelling at us and telling us to go back to Africa. These were not the sharpest tools in the box.

In my childhood it was a handicap. But in my adulthood, increasingly, as UK society became more multicultural, it’s felt much more normal. Even an advantage sometimes. I could be between the two. For example, when abroad, I’d sometimes feel ashamed of my British half, for political reasons, so I could say I was Iranian. I’ve not been back to Iran since 1978 so I haven’t experienced that culture as an adult. That would be interesting. I was certainly made to feel like a foreigner in both cultures by the kids I hung out with. I was never, in reality, a part of either. I felt more Iranian but I was too white to be accepted by Iranian kids and too brown to be accepted by kids here.

What makes you most ‘Welsh’?

Being born there I suppose? I can hold a tune, that’s very Welsh isn’t it, and the surge of pride I feel when Welsh rugby fans sing Land of Our Fathers is immense.

What makes you most ‘Iranian’?

I look very Levantine especially when I’ve been in the sun a few days. But within I think it’s kindness to strangers. Iranian people are amazingly kind as a culture. They love to help people, travellers always say they have the best time in Iran because people are so lovely to them, generous with their time and always happy to help. I think that altruistic streak is part of my DNA.

What similarities do you see with both Wales and Iran?

There’s a pride in their ancient history that I can see as a parallel. Obviously the Iranian side of that goes back much further to the first world empire, before the Greeks, but Wales has a wonderful and romantic historical legacy of Land Of The Druids. I think there’s a connection between the people and their history, and a sense of pride in both cultures.

When following the news or going about your life, do you spot things that are Welsh (when you’re abroad) or Iranian (when you’re in Wales)?

I don’t follow the news. I think it’s terrible for one’s mental health. I mostly just follow Good News around the world. But of course I can spot either. The influence Iran has had on the world is easier to spot though, for reasons that are obvious. Wales never conquered another country!

How embracive are Iranians you know to learning more about Welsh culture?

I only know one Anglo Iranian couple in Wales and they seem to be very aware and interested and knowledgeable about each other’s culture.

How embracive are Welsh people you know to learning more about Iranian culture?

I don’t really know but I can say that Welsh people were very kind to my mum in the early to mid-sixties, when she moved to Penarth. I think Welsh people understood what it felt like to be an outsider because they themselves felt outside of and marginalised by the English culture that ruled them. I think my mum would have had a much more welcoming experience in Penarth than she would have had in most English places.

How embracive are your family in celebrating both Welsh and Iranian cultures?

That’s a tricky question for me to answer because I was estranged from my father for most of my adult life, so I lost that connection to my fatherland, because I didn’t have a father in the normal sense of the word. But the Iranian side of my family has always been the most welcoming, loving, motivating and encouraging side of my family and we would, for example, always, without fail, celebrate No Ruz - Persian New Year. It was more important and more attended than Christmas in my family and it was my maternal side which drove that. There was nothing Welsh to celebrate as a family, aside from watching the odd rugby match as a child.

When in your life did you feel the most Iranian?

When I first saw my family home in Khorasan. I thought home was the house in Tehran but of course that was just where people were working. The ancestral home was of a family that can be traced back to the mid-7th Century. Seeing this incredible architecture, art, sculpture and of course carpets that were over a thousand years old, and thinking that the same blood ran in the veins of people walking on those carpets so long ago, certainly made me feel very Iranian and very proud of that culture.

When in your life did you feel the most Welsh?

When The Stereophonics asked me to introduce them to the stage of Cardiff Castle the first time they played there. The gig was called Cwmaman Feel the Noize and it was a heart explodingly brilliant day. I interviewed them for the video - I don’t think DVDs were a thing then! And after the great support bands like The Crocketts, I took to the stage and shouted “my name is Eddy Temple-Morris and I was born over there” - (pointing towards Glossop Terrace - The Cardiff Royal Infirmary)

“And I’ve never been fucking prouder.”

(There was an enormous cheer)

“That makes me a local boy...”

(The crowd sense what’s happening and start going crazy)

“Do you want to see three more local boys on this stage?”

That - right there - was one of the greatest moments of my life.

I’m only half Welsh at best but my God that crowd made me feel like my blood was made from tiny dragons.

Of course, in reality we both know it’s made from fire breathing dragons and sword wielding lions.