Cerys Matthews MBE is best known for being the lead singer of rock band Catatonia, who shot to fame in the 1990s. She went on to have a hugely successful solo career and later became one of the most popular radio hosts on BBC 6 Music.

She has also written two children’s books and a cookery book called Where the Wild Cooks Go, and has hosted numerous TV documentaries. Earlier this year, she released a new album that fuses poetry readings set to original music, called We Come From the Sun.

She spoke to Tes about her time in school and the teachers she remembers fondly, why she has never forgotten one particular game of British bulldog, and why being given a recorder in school was a key moment on her journey to becoming a music legend.

1. Where was your primary school?

I was born in Cardiff and went to a Welsh- language nursery and then a Welsh-language school but then, when I was 7, we moved to Swansea and I started going to a little school right there on the Swansea Bay crescent, called Bryn-y-Mor Primary, which means “hill of the sea”.

2. Do you have good memories of that school?

My memories are absolutely pristine. The teachers were fab there and it was Welsh language, so only Welsh was spoken throughout all the subjects that were taught, including science and maths.

In my memory, because it was the Welsh language, it was also an endless romp through singing and dancing, music, poetry, field trips outdoors, nature - then we had loads of eisteddfods (competitive festivals of music and poetry), pottery, playground games, rhymes and doing cartwheels and handstands against the walls.

3. Was it as idyllic as it sounds?

Well, before you get the impression it was all Green Green Grass of Home, [the school] was all concrete, tarmac and brick walls. We used to play British bulldog in the playground. I clashed with one of my classmates, who ended up in hospital with concussion, and my front tooth has been dead ever since.

4. Did you enjoy secondary school as much?

Secondary school became a bit more complex. By the time I was 11, I was first on the bus and I was an hour on the bus going to school and an hour coming back, so I started smoking aged 11.

Then you get towards being a teenager and you’re starting to question the world around you. At the time, the nuclear war stuff was going on in the news and I remember very quickly wanting to leave school.

5. Do you have good memories of the teachers at that school?

So many teachers. The best teachers will light a fire in the pupils that never goes out, and so many teachers did that for me.

One was Mrs Bowen. I don’t think she liked being in the classroom because she used to take us out all the time and we ended up going on field trips. She taught us to look around you in the natural world and see what you can recognise and what its uses are - like what is poisonous or what you can eat, for example.

All these things you can take up and run with for the rest of your life, and you teach your own children as well.

6. Were there any other teachers you remember?

There was a teacher called Mrs Ellis and she used to get really frustrated with me. She was second on the bus and so she’d come on and it was full of smoke. But she got to know me and realised I was either 100 per cent committed or 100 per cent totally zoned out, but she never gave up on me.

She taught biology, and when we were on these endless bus trips to and from school, she’d come down to the back and she’d say, “Cerys, look out of the window - that’s an old man’s beard [clematis] there”. Every time I see an old man’s beard, I can’t help but think of Mrs Ellis.

But she would get really frustrated with me, too, and she’d say: “You see, the problem with you, Cerys, is you look like you’re not listening; you’re looking out at the fields around you and then, when I ask you the question, you always know the answer!”

The other thing she’d do in biology class was say, for example, “Mark, you’re squinting, come here,” and she’d make the pupil do the eye test on the blackboard to test if that person was short-sighted. She spotted so many kids that were short-sighted because they started to squint. She loved it - I think that was her favourite thing.

7. Did school help you discover your love of music?

I have to give massive kudos to the council systems back then because the money they gave the schools meant there was enough to give free music lessons to primary school pupils. I remember there came a certain point in primary education where you’d have a recorder put in your hand and you’d do Three Blind Mice - that was always the first song you learned.

And then I remember there was a choice [of other instruments]. All the clarinets had gone; it was only violins - and half were broken - but there was a choice to start picking up different instruments and [it meant] every child had an instrument in their hand and some time to make a noise, and that was enough for me.

After that, I started collecting recorders - I was such a recorder bore - and then got totally addicted to music, playing the guitar and I started playing the piano, too.

8. Do you have any funny memories of school?

Every lunchtime, myself, my friend Katherine and another girl would go to the back field and have a cigarette. One time, Mrs Ellis came down to the back field where no one usually went, and we had someone on lookout and they said, “Mrs Ellis is on the way down”, so we got our cigarettes and put them under our jumpers.

9. That can’t have ended well…

At the time, those jumpers were all acrylic, and so Mrs Ellis was talking and we were all on our best behaviour: “Yes, Mrs Ellis. No, Mrs Ellis.” Then Katherine’s jumper started smoking and not only was it smoking but there was this sort of orange sun of melting acrylic - they were grey jumpers but as hers melted, it was turning bright orange. It was getting larger and larger, and we were all trying to put our backs to her jumper and wafting the stinky, dank, sharp smell of burning plastic away from Mrs Ellis. That was quite funny.

10. What was the biggest lesson you took from school?

The most precious advice and help that I got as a child was to be encouraged in being open-eyed and open-minded, and to keep asking questions - and that was thanks to my teachers and my bilingual heritage.

Cerys Matthews was speaking to Dan Worth, senior editor at Tes

We Come From The Sun is available now on all streaming services

This article originally appeared in the 19 February 2021 issue