{"id":440483,"date":"2026-02-23T01:36:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T01:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/440483\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T01:36:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T01:36:09","slug":"kenneth-williams-speaking-welsh-on-tv-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/440483\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenneth Williams speaking Welsh on TV show"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Kenneth Williams sitting in for Wogan and filming Carry On Up The Khyber in Snowdonia<\/p>\n

David Owens<\/p>\n

Kenneth Williams was to all intents and purposes the very epitome of Englishness.<\/p>\n

With his highly pronounced and clipped accent, you would imagine that despite having the surname Williams, he was nothing other than English personified.<\/p>\n

However, the comedy star famed for his appearances in the Carry On films, never thought of himself as such.<\/p>\n

Wales, while not the land of his birth (he was born in London), was the land of his mother and father, who were both Welsh.<\/p>\n

His parents were Charles George Williams, who managed a hairdressers in the Kings Cross area, and Louisa Alexandra (n\u00e9e Morgan), who worked in the salon.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not English, I\u2019m Welsh<\/p>\n

With a lifelong love of language, it was in the mid-80s when he revealed a never-before-seen, publicly at least, aptitude for the Welsh language.<\/p>\n

It was April 1986, when a then 60-year-old Williams sat in for Terry Wogan for a week on his Wogan chatshow, while the Irish host was on holiday.<\/p>\n

He was a roaring success and at the end of a fascinating chat with fresh-faced, 28-year-old Stephen Fry, (around 8 mins, 29 secs) the Carry On Star alluded to the roses on the table in front of him.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s St George\u2019s Day today and the rose is the symbol of St George, the patron saint of England. I wouldn\u2019t know anything about it. I\u2019m not English, I\u2019m Welsh,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

In his own inimitable style the actor then demonstrates his Welsh language skills by proclaiming: \u201cMymryn bach o Gymru, Cymru fydd, Cymru sydd \u2013 Cymru am byth!\u201d<\/p>\n

Translated that means: \u201cA little bit of Wales, Wales will be, Wales is \u2013 Wales forever!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very poetic isn\u2019t it,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n

The comedy star, who died aged 62 in 1988 and who today would have celebrated his 100th birthday, was evidently proud of his Welsh roots.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Interviewed on location in Eryri in 1968 while filming Carry On Up The Khyber (apparently Eryri was the only place in the UK that resembled The Khyber Pass on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan) he spoke about how much he loved coming to Wales.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always like being back in Wales, always, you see my parents were Welsh,\u201d he says. \u201cMy mother was a Morgan from Pontnewydd and my father was from Port Talbot and so I always feel a hiraeth, it always comes back to you, once you step back into the place where you have atavistic memories.\u201d<\/p>\n

His Welshness and sense of belonging, although not widely known, was something that stayed with him to the end and something Kenneth Williams was delighted to acknowledge.<\/p>\n

Kenneth Williams \u2013 22 February 1926 \u2013 15 April 1988.<\/p>\n

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\n independent, not-for-profit, national news service for the people of Wales, by
\n the people of Wales.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kenneth Williams sitting in for Wogan and filming Carry On Up The Khyber in Snowdonia David Owens Kenneth…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":440484,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-440483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/440484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}