Chris Needs, radio host and musician who brought home comforts to the Welsh diaspora – obituary

Chris Needs - BBC
Chris Needs - BBC

Chris Needs, who has died of a heart condition aged 66, was a Welsh broadcaster, pianist and singer whose repertoire extended to several languages including Dutch and Spanish; along the way he played keyboards for Bonnie Tyler and performed in his own shows in Britain and Ibiza.

For 20 years listeners tuned in to his late-night programme on BBC Radio Wales, a show featuring a mixture of old-fashioned show business and familiar companionship. The programme included music, stories and phone calls from dedicated listeners across the principality.

Once a listener asked Needs if he had a fan club. Instinctively he replied “Yes”, and soon other listeners were asking to join. Today there are an estimated 50,000 members of the Chris Needs Friendly Garden, many of whom are from the Welsh diaspora who listen through the internet around the world. “A lot of comfort has been found through the Garden, and because of this I am sent lovely letters, cards and presents,” he wrote in his autobiography Chris Needs, Like It Is (2013).

Christopher Needs was born on March 12 1954 in Cwmafan, near Port Talbot, a place he affectionately called “the land of the moving curtains”. He was the eldest of three sons of Harold Needs, a steelworker known as Aitch, and his wife Margaret Rose (née Lewis), who owned a couple of grocery shops and was a lay preacher at the local chapel. Welsh was the language of the house by day, but they switched to English when his father returned home.

He was educated at Duffryn Comprehensive School, recalling a litany of physical, sexual and verbal abuse during those years. His father’s reaction was: “You must have bloody deserved it.” He hated rugby and would escape to his bedroom, where he created a make-believe radio studio by placing a record player in his wardrobe and adding a television, telephone and cassette player.

Needs also played the piano, becoming a fixture at social clubs across South Wales. He was a flamboyant character with Carnaby Street-style jackets, platform shoes and mascara. Once he was turned away from a Swansea nightclub for wearing a kilt but returned to speak with a Scottish accent, at which point the bouncer let him in.

His love affair with Spain began at 17, when he was the keyboard player in a band called Aquarius. Soon he was a pianist at an upmarket hotel on the Costa del Sol, glad to be distant from the homophobia of the clubs in Wales. Within three months he was also teaching English to Spanish children.

On one occasion he was visiting Gibraltar and stepped out to buy some postcards. On the walk he befriended an estate agent and came back as the owner of an apartment. He adored the Rock, describing the atmosphere there as “like Tesco or Dorothy Perkins with palm trees and lizards”.

Needs was visiting Cardiff in 1990 when a friend told him about Touch, a new commercial radio station. He made an audition tape using a ghetto blaster on the floor of his living room and was invited for a studio audition, where he was immediately offered the weekly Wenglish Show.

In 1996 he won a Sony Radio Award for best regional presenter, which led to a sought-after move to BBC Radio Wales, followed by Radio Cymru. In 2002 he transferred to Radio Wales’s late-night slot, where his cats, Willy, Gaynor and Delyth Du, often received mentions. “In the clubs I would have to go flat out with a joke to get a reaction,” he observed. “But on the radio I could be gentle and laidback and have the same effect.”

Chris Needs, who was appointed MBE in 2005, is survived by his husband, Gabe Cameron.

Chris Needs, born March 12 1954, died July 26 2020