Ben Elton: 'I owe my life to a private school in north Wales'

Ben Elton has said he owes his life to the actions of a headmaster at a north Wales school during World War Two.

The comedian and writer's grandparents were German Jews based in Prague, in what was then Czechoslovakia, in 1938.

With Hitler planning to invade, they managed to escape when Rydal Penrhos, in Colwyn Bay, Conwy, offered his father and uncle a scholarship.

"I kind of owe my life to a private school in north Wales," Elton told Lucy Owen on BBC Radio Wales.

He said his grandfather was initially offered a position as a lecturer in the UK, however was only permitted to bring his wife, not his children.

"So clearly they couldn't go," Elton said.

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Elton said that it was a series of "amazing coincidences" that eventually led to his father and uncle securing a place at Rydal Penrhos.

A conversation on a train in Wales between a clergyman and another passenger who happened to know Elton's grandmother when she was an au pair in the Netherlands led to the pair being accepted by the school.

Elton was writer for some of the UK's most famous comedy shows, including The Young Ones and Blackadder

Elton said his father and uncle, then aged 15 and 17, were given a place in a "cold school but with a very, very warm welcome".

Had the headmaster at the Methodist school not offered those places, they would have had to remain in Prague and would have all "undoubtedly" been murdered, he added.

He said he would never be anything other than "utterly respectful" for the fact that the UK gave his family a home, but added that they had both made a significant contribution to the country - both becoming professors.

"I'm the son of a refugee and I feel very strongly about the contribution that refugees have made to all the cultures they've gone to. My father and my uncle - I think that they gave back," he said.

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