In the 1970s, when Byron Rogers was appointed speechwriter to the Prince of Wales, the Daily Telegraph, where he was for many years a prolific contributor, report- ed the story in a one-sentence paragraph: ‘The Prince of Wales has appointed as speechwriter Mr Byron Rogers, a colourful Welshman.’ Nearly 40 years on, he still resents that announcement — ‘as though being a colourful Welshman was a job,’ he complains, ‘like a bus driver.’ To judge from Me: The Authorised Biography, though, the Telegraph’s subs had it right — being a colourful Welshman is Byron Rogers’ job, and he is extremely good at it.
He was born in monoglot Carmarthen- shire, an only child, ‘amongst people who heard a different drum’. When he was five the family moved four miles up the road to Carmarthen town, in the shadows of the English castle and unusually hideous chapels.
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