Lord David Owen and the Welsh radical tradition

David Owen: "I feel Welsh. I have no English blood in me at all"

Former Foreign Secretary and SDP Leader David Owen has been looking back on his Welsh roots.

Lord Owen was the latest guest on Radio 4's Reflections with Peter Hennessy in which the historian (and crossbench peer) gets senior politicians to talk about their life and times.

David Anthony Llewellyn Owen may, as the name suggests, have strong Welsh connections, although he grew up in Plymouth, the city he later served as an MP.

He sees his upbringing as being "in the Welsh radical tradition in the sense that politics is important, politics is discussed a huge amount".

His father, a GP, was an independent on the parish council; his mother an independent on Devon County Council.

"Politics was discussed but rarely in a party political sense," he said. Summers went spent "in Tenby or particularly Aberporth".

He added: "I lived with my grandmother and my grandfather, who was a clergyman, blind, in the Welsh church but basically a Methodist.

"I went to the local school every day with him as he tapped his way on the road down to the village church and I learnt Welsh but I've forgotten every word of it.

"So I do identify with Welsh, I feel Welsh, I have no English blood in me at all."

Lord Owen didn't name the school but his grandfather was rector of Llandow, near Cowbridge. His great-grandfather William Llewellyn owned the Gwalia general stores in Ogmore Vale - now rebuilt at the Museum of Welsh Life, where it was re-opened by....David Owen.