‘If you stop writing, you’re dead!’ – Harri Webb, the People’s Poet
From Planet 249
by Desmond Clifford
Desmond Clifford digs up a lost recording of what was probably the last interview with the swashbuckling seaman, librarian and bardd gwerin from Swansea.
In 1990 I was groping for the first rung of the ladder at the BBC in Cardiff, at the bottom of the freelance food chain. Whenever I had spare time I took a tape-recorder – a heavy reel-to-reel in those days – and found radio stories to pay my rent. Mostly I did news where the daily demand was reliable. I would have preferred arts but the people managing the minuscule culture output on Radio Wales guarded their den tightly, and strays weren’t encouraged.
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Desmond Clifford is Principal Secretary to the First Minister of Wales. Previously Head of the Welsh Government EU Office in Brussels, he began his career as a journalist with the BBC, becoming Head of News at the Welsh Office in 1997
