Episode 82: Cerys Matthews
Spinning Plates with Sophie Ellis-Bextor
Kat Rulach
4.8 • 527 Ratings
🗓️ 16 January 2023
⏱️ 69 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Cerys Matthews is a Welsh singer, presenter and writer. I first became aware of her when I was starting out with my first band Theaudience. She was then with her band Catatonia, which was big - and part of the Cool Cymru trend. After Cerys left that band she went on a voyage of musical discovery while living in a cabin in the woods near Tennessee - an experience she draws on to this day when curating her radio shows. Her excellent 6Music show is a big part of our Sundays. We love it.
I spoke to Cerys at the beginning of December when she had just launched her new children's book. It's a bite-size take on Dylan Thomas's 'Under Milkwood', which she wants to bring to a new audience, namely little children.
Cerys's three children are teenagers now, and we talked about mothering in the teen years, compared to the full-on baby and toddler years, which led her to share her story of her worst ever parenting experience... on a long-haul flight.
Cerys talked about coming back to the UK form America, to bring her children up. She said it took her 6 years in America to appreciate Britain, including the BBC.
As it was early December, we mused on how we all try and create the perfect Christmas Day, based on family traditions started in Christmases past. We agreed we can't be all things to all people at all times - and Cerys said that next time she's coming back as a man...with a wife!
Cerys also shared that she's not drawn to beach holidays but loves an adventure, and she told me about her life-changing trip to Everest base camp which she, her husband and her two youngest boys did 3 years ago, to celebrate her 50th birthday. Her enthusiasm for it was so infectious I'm going to look into it myself, especially as a) she said the children loved it - and b) it sounded like it involved lots of stops for chips!
Spinning Plates is presented by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, produced by Claire Jones and post-production by Richard Jones
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Sophia Lusbexter and welcome to Spinning Plates, the podcast where I speak to |
| 0:09.6 | to busy working women who also happen to be mothers about how they make it work. |
| 0:14.4 | I'm a singer and I've released seven albums in between having my five sons aged 16 months to 16 years, |
| 0:20.4 | so I spin a few plates myself. |
| 0:22.1 | Being a mother can be the most amazing thing, |
| 0:24.6 | but can also be hard to find time for yourself and your own ambitions. |
| 0:28.1 | I want to be a bit nosy and see how other people balance everything. |
| 0:31.7 | Welcome to spinning plates. |
| 0:36.3 | Hello, how are you doing? I nearly said hello hello darling. I can call you darling. Hello, darling. How are you doing? How is your day going so far? Are you listening in the morning as I am recording this, it's morning time? It's 10 to 11, or maybe it's afternoon, where you are now, |
| 0:57.7 | or even evening or even night. I listen to quite a lot of podcasts at night, actually. |
| 1:00.9 | So I find it a little bit hard to drop off. So I've been listening to a lot of podcasts that I, |
| 1:06.9 | yeah, just to drop off. I'm trying to think what I've been listening to at the moment. Oh, I'm listening to, I don't know if you will have listened to this episode, but I spoke, it must have been last year to a BBC journalist called Helen Merriman. And she, we had a lovely chat that she does a brilliant podcast called Rim 5, which I've been listening to. |
| 1:28.5 | I think it was published. |
| 1:30.4 | I don't think I'm listening to them as they're published. |
| 1:31.9 | I think it just finished its series, but there was a couple I missed, so I've been listening to some of them. |
| 1:36.6 | I've also been listening to Hannah Fry's Science Podcast, which I really like. |
| 1:43.3 | And yeah, just being kept company. So where are you right now? |
| 1:47.3 | What are you up to? Have you had a productive day today? No matter how much of it you've been up for, |
| 1:53.5 | for me at nearly 11, it's been okay. I took the kids to school this morning. It's starting to get a bit |
| 2:00.3 | cold out there. I hear it's in for another cold snap this week. Not quite the kind of minus three we had before Christmas, but we might be heading for like not that far above zero, which quite frankly, I'm not happy about. Coats, yes, gloves and hats. No, I'd rather not, thanks. Especially in the mornings. |
| 2:21.8 | I have to get the kids out the door. My eldest two leave the house by half past seven, |
| 2:26.1 | 740 latest. And then the next two, I walk them to school and we leave it about half eight |
... |
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