BONNIE TYLER: The man who discovered her returns to a Swansea stage with the story of how it all began

The man who discovered Bonnie Tyler is returning to a Swansea stage to tell the story of how it all began.

Roger Bell appears alongside Mal Pope at the South Wales Miners’ Library at Y Storfa on Wednesday 23 September, in the evening programme of a free open day run by the National Library of Wales.

It was Bell who wandered into the Townsman club half a century ago, heard a girl singing, and told his boss Ronnie Scott she might suit one of his new songs. He worked for her for 47 years, and last month gave the eulogy at her funeral at Swansea Minster, telling the congregation: “My friend, I am going to miss her.”

The pair will reflect on Bonnie Tyler’s formative years as an artist, the library says, in an evening that also features entertainment from the Dulais Divas.

The night’s centrepiece is home-grown: the premiere of new performances created by Swansea young people and adults, inspired by the 1984-85 miners’ strike, Copperopolis and the area’s industrial past.

The performances grew out of Snippets of Swansea, a four-day creative project in August that dug through material from the Wales Broadcast Archive and the Miners’ Library’s own collections.

Stacey Brown, the National Library’s community engagement officer for south west Wales, said: “The project was designed as a relaxed and creative way for people to try something new while making archive material feel accessible.

“All of the participants said they had learnt something new and felt more connected to their local history.

“For young people especially, having access to archive material in a creative way can make it a much more engaging educational tool, and we hope it will encourage them to explore further for themselves.”

The day runs from 1pm, with free drop-in activities throughout: the Watch and Listen broadcast archive, People’s Collection Wales, the chance to search the Women’s Peace Petition, and Ol | Haunts, a virtual reality experience built from Wales’s collections.

Library staff and partners will be on hand through the afternoon, and schools take part in dedicated workshops on Swansea’s Copperopolis years.

The library bills the day as part of its Your Library tour, taking the national collections out to the communities they belong to, with Clip Corners across Wales offering a way in to its screen and sound archives afterwards.

Everything is free, with no booking needed, and the day runs until 7pm.

For a city that filled the Minster and the streets outside it only last month, the evening offers something gentler: the story of where that voice was first heard, told by the man who was listening.

Author

Kit Peters

Kit Peters is a journalist and the editor of Swansea Bay News, covering Swansea, Neath Port Talbot and Carmarthenshire since 2020.