FORMER Welsh Road Race champion, president of the Welsh Cycling Union and the longest serving director of the national governing body of British Cycling, Bill Owen talks to Angharad Williams about his early life, health troubles and his MBE.

“I was born in Cardiff in 1944 and then my parents moved to a smallholding in Aberdare when I was three. I went to junior school there until I was 11 but we were really in the wilds there, living on the side of a mountain.

We had to walk three miles to school across a mountain and I suppose things like that toughen you up.

My grandfather on my father’s side died and he lived in Cardiff, so we moved back there for 12 months. That didn’t really work, so my parents decided to move out and they took on the tenancy of the Walnut tree which is now the Michelin star place.

They sold up so we moved to the New Inn on the Mardy pub until they finished with that, and then into the centre of Abergavenny.

My Dad worked in a factory in Cardiff during the war making munitions and then he went straight into a new life then. I remember him looking after the smallholding and going out to work and that’s how it was. Even when he kept the pub, he still had to go out to work.

I started work at 15, I went to work for a building company in Abergavenny and did a plumbing apprenticeship. I continued with my apprenticeship, which was just boring really, up until I was 18.

I started cycling because of the necessity of going to work really. It was a mile or so to work, and it grew from that. I didn’t really start cycling until I was 15 and that’s when I got my proper sports bike. I got the love of the freedom of going out on my own. I would think nothing then of going out and doing 50 miles.

I joined the club in Pontypool when I was 16 or 17, there was no other cyclists in Abergavenny then and it went on from there, and that’s when I won the Welsh Road championship.

The day I finished my apprenticeship I waved goodbye and started on my own plumbing and then turned into building and that’s when it all started in 1965. I had to more or less give up cycling professionally and concentrate on building the business up which then took every hour of my life then.

I then met Brenda, my wife in the summer of ’66. She lived a few miles from Abergavenny and we met because I was working with her brother was working with me. Within six months we got married and we’ve been together now 50 years.

We had the eldest son David 10 months into the marriage and then we had three children under five. David and Alun were keen to go cycling from an early age, in fact Alun was doing 100 miles rides when he was still in primary school.

He went on and did two or three Commonwealth games where he represented Wales, in ’94 and 98. Emma still cycles to keep fit.

As I said there was no club or cyclists in Abergavenny, and then I met up with a like-minded person who moved into the area and between us we formed the first Abergavenny Road Club because there were a lot of kids interested in cycling then.

We formed the club in the mid ‘70s. Then in ’85 I got into organising events and we jumped into a professional event. Our company, Owen Construction, sponsored a cyclist, Steve Wallington, and that’s then how I got involved in the admin of the professional association.

The road club became quite big with about 1,800 members at that time, and basically like any club you can’t get everyone seeing eye to eye. I wanted to progress to a professional side and others didn’t see it that way. So for want of a better word I wasn’t getting my own way then, and so I started a new club in 1985, the Abergavenny Cycling Club. We were winning medals at national level.

I became director of the Cycling Association which administered professional cycling in Britain. At that time it was outside of British Cycling, which was the governing body, but they were only concerned with the amateur side.

In 1985 we organised the first professional race into Abergavenny, and if you can imagine the brick walls we had to face. I can remember walking into the police inspectors’ office in Abergavenny and him saying ‘If any cyclists overtake the police bike in front then they will be arrested!’ But nothing ever happened about that.

Everyone backed the event from then. We tried to make it look professional, we put barriers around the town centre, we ran amateur events for the kids and supporting events. It carried on in that format for a number of years, until ’96.

British Cycling then took over from the Cycling Association. So we ran the inaugural British Championships here in Abergavenny and at that time we were trying to get a covered velodrome into Wales and we working on that. Blaenau Gwent were keen to have it built just outside Brynmawr.

So we took the Championships up there, and it was like the Wild West because we shut the town down and I had enough, so basically took my bat home for a couple of years. I even resigned from Welsh Cycling.

In 2000, Cardiff wanted to host the British Championships and Welsh Cycling came to me to see if I would put it on for them. Then I got back involved and was elected chairman and went on the national board for British Cycling.

I was there for 13 years as director, and I saw the membership grow from 10,000 when I joined to 100,000 when I left like. We saw the London Olympics and Tour de France wins all in that time.

In 2003 we brought the Championship to the Celtic Manor and we brought the women’s Championship there too. We hosted a round of the women’s world cup in 2005 also in the Celtic Manor.

In the meantime the Sports Council could see we were serious about getting the velodrome, so they awarded money to build and run the velodrome. I was involved with the bids that came from around Wales. In the end we put it in Newport and the catchment area was huge.

In 2007 we started the Abergavenny Festival which included quite a variety event including a national series road race. Before that we staged the national championship and both went well so we built on that.

2009 was when we had the big championship when we had Cavendish, Froome Wiggins, Nicole Cooke – they were all in Abergavenny for it. That was a big strain financially on us because we were on our own, other than the Town Council’s help and private sponsorship.

Monmouthshire came knocking in 2012 and so we bid for the national championship and didn’t get in 2013, but we got it for 2014.

It also included a time trial which we based at the Celtic Manor and the road race centred in Abergavenny. Independent surveys recon there were 47,000 people come to the event.

Life would have been totally different without cycling no doubt.

In 1991 I had a serious heart attack which made me realise I had to get fitter really, although I wasn’t unfit, and look after myself a bit better. I don’t think there’s anything better for fitness and relieving stress than getting out there, completely on your own. The feeling you do get, all your worries can disappear because everything is so quiet.

Christmas time, the year before last, I had a stroke when I was out cycling. It was quite a minor thing, but I did end up in the middle of the road, I lost all my senses down my right side, so that was a wake-up call. Then in January of last year I had another one when we were going round a course and I was sat in the police car and it all went funny again. I went straight into Nevill Hall and then I started having stents and had four stents fitted in January.

I went through the cardiac rehab in the new programme and that gave me a lot of confidence to do things again, because I was afraid to even lift a cup of tea like. So that got me back cycling.

I went back on the same programme after I had the stents fitted. I came through that and I continued cycling right through the summer until the weather got cold.

In December we found I had been awarded an MBE, it was a surprise. It was a pleasant surprise.

I received a letter through the post from the cabinet office asking me whether I’d accept it. So I had to reply and said yes. Prior to that I’d had a couple of awards, I was very humbled to have been nominated for it. I have just been included into the hall of fame of British Cycling.

I’ll be told when I need to travel to London to get the MBE in due course, and with my 50th wedding anniversary it was a real double celebration.”