“I WAS born in Llanelli back in 1960, born into a socialist community.

My father and grandfather were leading Labour councillors in the town so I was kind of born into that family and atmosphere.

I never joined a political party until the SDP was formed and I joined the party on day one.

I think it was its call for electoral reform which really attracted me.

They wanted devolution, which was not so much talked about in the Labour Party in those days, and a form of proportional representation rather than first past the post.

And I suppose being born and brought up in Llanelli, which was then a Labour heartland, you had the sense of how unfair the system was.

I think the seeing of that one party state and how that affected everything made me think that a fairer system would bring fairness across the board.

I went to Llanelli Boys’ Grammar School – described by the Archbishop of Wales’ press officer as the Eton of Wales.

At the time of my ordination, half of the bench of bishops [in the Church in Wales] were old boys of the school.

I did quite a lot of things outside the classroom: I ran cross-country for the school; I had to organise the school’s concerts and drama productions.

I was news editor of the school newspaper; Huw Edwards, the BBC’s Huw Edwards, was the editor.

I didn’t go to university – I trained as a residential social worker and then as a psychiatric nurse.

I then went on to work for Roy Jenkins and, in 1987, Communism was falling in Eastern Europe so the government set up an organisation in the Foreign Office which was responsible for going into failing democracies called the Westminster Foundation for Democracy.

Groups of us would go into failing democracies and help the re-establishment of democracies. That was the late 80s, early 90s.

I worked fairly closely with a guy called Zhelev, who became pPresident of Bulgaria – without a political party – for one period but lost it at the end because he had no political structure to get himself re-elected.

Working for Roy Jenkins was great. I think people thought him think he was aloof but he was actually quite a shy guy and he was incredibly generous.

The last time I saw Roy before he died, he’d invited me to have a lunch at the House of Lords and he was going to have major surgery so he couldn’t eat but he insisted that I had a three-course meal.

He just sat opposite drinking water. The perception of the man is not that, but that it is the reality of the man.

There was severe frustration in 1983 – we had almost the same percentage share as Labour and peanuts in terms of seats.

There were lots of highs and lows, really.

I’m saying to the guys who are there now: don’t be too downbeat about the (General) Election result because we’ve been there before.

I remember us losing really badly in the European elections in 1989 and Paddy (Ashdown) left us to do interviews on Parliament Green, feeling really sorry for the man.

Six months before, when he got elected as leader, the party was in such a mess that the result was announced in the Electoral Reform Society and then they arrived by car at party headquarters where there was going to be a great press conference.

But just before they were due to arrive, a bailiff appeared at the door.

I didn’t know who he was and I said: “You can’t go in there,” and he said: “I think I can.” You can imagine what a story that would have been with all the press there.

I managed to find on site a wealthy benefactor – I won't ’m not going to tell you who he is but he is a resident of Monmouthshire – and he signed the cheque and the guy went away happy.

That’s how near it was to having the power cut.

It was a rough ride: seven times I was made redundant when I worked for Roy/the party in the space of less than seven years.

I’d been brought up regularly attending church, although it had fallen by the wayside at one point in my adult life for two or three years. I decided I really should pursue this call and couldn’t keep running away from it.

I started embarking on that journey, and then had a massive heart attack.

It was two days before my 30th birthday; I was laid really low.

Paddy was really great at that point, pulled out all the stops, made sure I had full health checks.

I had it in London. I had come back from the Bradford by-election and I hadn’t slept for 72 hours. We’d been up all night the day before.

I went to sleep with major chest pains – like a whole weight on your chest – and then I got up in the morning and my flatmate heard a bang and I’d just fallen to the floor.

Ambulance came, took me off. I had come to and I remember the ambulance coming and I remember grabbing an overnight bag and these ambulance men grabbing me.

I was put out and they had to stop my heart and restart it.

So the church then said: “We don’t want you if you’re unfit like that; go away and come back in three years.”

At the time it was of great frustratingon but I think it was the right thing.

So I did that travelling in the Foreign Office job and I think if I hadn’t have done that I would have been yearning to do something like that.

From jetsetting around the world and then the bell ringing at 7am, the bell ringing at the time to go to chapel. It was a complete change of lifestyle.

I was ordained in 1996 and I went on to Tenby; Then, I moved to Newport in 2003.

My life has always been complicated all my life. I wasn’t just in Tenby, then on the staff at the cathedral in Newport.

In parallel to that I took an army commission; I also took up the politics again and I ran Assembly election and the General Election in early 2000s because I was national agent from 2000 to 2003, and I was acting chief executive of the party for six months after Gordon Brown became pPrime mMinister.

I was a member of the Royal Army Chaplains’ department so I worked with cadets as their chaplain, I worked with TA regiments in Wales.

I assisted at Beachley Barracks when the regular chaplain was off in Afghanistan so had to deal with all the deaths that were coming back.

I came to Newport in 2003 and went to join the staff at the cathedral.

The Bishop was Dominic Walker, who retired aroundbout 18 months ago.

It was great; he was a single guy so we socialised quite a lot together and every Sunday night went out for a curry.

I was at the cathedral until 2008 and then they created a chaplaincy at the University of Wales, Newport, so I went there in 2008, set that up and in recognition of setting that up I was made an honorary fellow of the university.

I went to Abergavenny in 2012, three-and-a-half years ago.

Sailing is my big hobby but I don’t have anything like the time to do it.

My brother has got a boat. The real problem is that People who go sailing go sailing at weekends – which is not a good time for me!

But when I worked for Roy we went sailing most weekends – go up to Glasgow, work in the constituency and then go off sailing down the Clyde.

Eating is important to me. I still enjoy Indian food but my stomach can’t process it like it used to. I like Italian food. I never eat at home. My kitchen’s got all the things but they never get used.

My mother packs up my kitchen whenever I move and says: “I don’t know why you bothered doing this; you’re just going to leave them in the boxes.”