Director made his dad’s dying wish to see Wales football film come true

WELSH filmmaker Jonny Owen has spoken about the heartache of learning his dad had just weeks to live while he was racing against a deadline to finish Wales football film Don’t Take Me Home.

The award-winning director was working around the clock piecing the film together at a studio in Nottingham, where he lives with his actress partner, Line Of Duty and The Replacement star Vicky McClure, when he received the devastating news that his father Brian had been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer and had just weeks to live.

Jonny said he made sure his dad saw the film by laying in bed with him just days before he died watching the critically acclaimed film which documents Wales’ incredible passage to the Euro Championship semi-finals on a specially made DVD.

It was his father’s dying wish that he finish the movie, which has seen audiences flocking to cinemas not only in Wales but also around the UK to see it.

“He was diagnosed eight weeks ago with aggressive terminal cancer,” said Jonny. “He faced it with his usual mixture of courage and humour that he faced his whole life. You never heard him complain. He was totally insistent on me finishing the film as I had to as I was on a deadline to get it out for St David’s Day, but as he deteriorated I tried to spend as much time with him as I could. That meant working through the night sometimes so I could get back to see him, stay the night with him and all day with him, as much as I could.

“He managed to see the film. He was very ill at that point but I managed to get it on DVD for him. He saw it the night of the Welsh premiere in Nantgarw. I went to the premiere and then I drove back to my parents’ house in Merthyr and lay next to him in bed, like Morecambe and Wise we were in a pair of dressing gowns.

“He was a huge Welsh football fan and used to go and watch Wales away in the ‘50s. All his life he was a Merthyr Town and Wales fan. He said to me, ‘it’s really important to me that you finish the film.’ I respected that and was able to finish it and he was able to see it before he passed away.”

Jonny said that he wanted to keep his dad’s diagnosis secret. People only discovered news of his death from a tribute paid to him on the closing credits to the film which reads: “In memory of my dear father Brian Thomas Owen – a lifelong Wales football fan.”

“It was important for me to keep it under wraps as I didn’t want anybody to think that I was in anyway trying to play any sort of sympathy card, as I wanted to get the film out and for it to be judged on its own merits,” said Jonny.

“I was very aware that I had to have a moving tribute to Gary Speed at the top of the film, but I did want to mention my father by name.

“It was because of him that I have a love of football and a great love of the Welsh national football team.”

Jonny added: “He was in the army, the Welch Regiment and the thing he missed about being in the army most was playing football.

“He was a brilliant player. He had the chance to have trials for Aston Villa and Sheffield Wednesday but didn’t go because of the army.”

Brian was 78 when he died and Jonny said he defied doctors’ expectations to live as long as he did with the conditions he suffered with.

“He had pneumoconiosis from working in the pits as an electrician in the ‘60s and then he had an asbestos-related illness from the early ‘70s when he worked in a factory,” said Jonny.

“The doctors said he was at the top end of the spectrum for the diseases he had, which means he lived as long as he could with the conditions he had.”

His father even became something of a celebrity on Facebook with Jonny entertaining his many friends on the social media platform, regaling them with hilarious tales of his dad.

“I received so many emails about him. He was such a character and people who never met him loved me writing about him,” he said.

“I told him and he’d give a little nod. He had no idea about Facebook but he was funny, naughty and generous. Everybody would have loved him.”

In addition to his father’s death, Jonny was dealt a double blow when he learned that one of his closest friends, childhood