Huw Edwards was named by his own wife as the BBC presenter behind the sexual misconduct scandal that has rocked the broadcaster over the last week.
In a statement on behalf of her husband, Vicky Flind said Huw had been “suffering from serious mental health issues” and is presently “receiving in-patient hospital care where he will stay for the foreseeable future.” She asked for privacy for her family.
As a result, the conversation around allegations of paying a teen thousands of pounds to obtain explicit photos as well as behaving inappropriately with some of his staff members quickly turned to a bigger conversation about mental health and depression. Many people also started using the hashtag “Caroline Flack” and “Be Kind” while talking about Edwards online.
A number of people also dug up a May 2022 article for Men’s Health where Huw mentioned that his dad also suffered from depression as he does.
“I think my dad… This is the irony. I look back and I can see now that he suffered from depression, but he never recognized it. And he, in fact, was very impatient with people who said they were depressed. Almost angry, you know? ‘Self-indulgent crap,’ he once called it. His general theme was that there are people with real problems in this world…” he said at the time.
Who was Hywel Teifi Edwards?
Hywel Teifi Edwards was a Welsh academic and historian and a prominent Welsh nationalist. He was also a broadcaster and an author. He was born and raised in Aberarth, Cardiganshire. Hywel attended Aberaeron Grammar School and the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth.
Hywel taught Welsh at Garw Grammar School, Pontycymmer. That is where he met his wife Aerona. They had two children, Huw and Meinir Edwards, who is now Meinir Krishnasamy. He subsequently became an extramural lecturer in Welsh literature at the University of Wales, Swansea, and later Professor and Head of the Welsh Department.
Hywel contested twice as a parliamentary candidate, in Llanelli in 1983 and Carmarthen in 1987. He represented Llangennech on Dyfed County Council for 12 years from 1977, and served for over 30 years as a Plaid Cymru member of Llangennech Community Council.
Huw had a turbulent relationship with his father – a fact he did not hide. “The fact that he wasn’t home that often was a challenge for mam,” he said in an interview back in January 2022.
“He was always out lecturing all the time, doing evening classes and so on. We weren’t that close to be honest – not like me and mam, because dad wasn’t that present when I was growing up. He could be quite sharp. I laugh when people tell me that dad was full of humour and that he always had a smile on his face. I often think – what, do you live on the same planet as me? Yes, he could be very witty and he could laugh. He could be very sharp-tongued at times and if you were on the receiving end of that, it wasn’t very fun.”
Meinir, Huw’s sister said that she believes that their relationship helped the BBC presenter become successful in his career.
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“Huw and dad were very similar in a lot of ways,” she explained. “They could capture the audience’s attention with just a couple of words. But they wouldn’t always get on and I think that was to a degree due to the fact that they were so similar. Both of them were extremely passionate about what they did. I remember me and mam would sit next to the dinner table year over the years and the two of them would start lecturing at one and other. We would start thinking – here we go again, another lecture over Sunday dinner! But looking back, I think for Huw that was some sort of practice, even though we didn’t know at the time. The fact that he had to immerse himself into a very intense discussion, you had to listen to what dad had to say and be ready to respond and demonstrate that you had understood what he had said.”
Hywel died in January 2010.
