Lemmy Kilmister
Rock singer, bassist and songwriter (Motorhead)
Ian Fraser "Lemmy" Kilmister, the singer and bassist who founded Motorhead, was born on 24 December 1945 in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England, and was not Welsh by birth. However, his teenage years were spent in North Wales: when he was ten his mother married George Willis, and the family moved to a farm in Benllech, on the island of Anglesey. Lemmy attended Ysgol Syr Thomas Jones in Amlwch, later recalling, only half-joking, that being "the only English kid among 700 Welsh ones" was not always easy, but was interesting "from an anthropological point of view".
It was in Anglesey that Lemmy learned to play guitar and got his first taste of playing live, in a Llandudno club, before leaving Wales for the north-west of England and, eventually, London, where he worked as a roadie for Jimi Hendrix and joined the space-rock band Hawkwind. After his 1975 departure from Hawkwind, he formed Motorhead, fronting the band for four decades and cementing his status as one of hard rock's most instantly recognisable figures with hits like "Ace of Spades".
Lemmy never claimed to be Welsh, and the respected Dictionary of Welsh Biography, which includes his entry, notes plainly that he identified as English throughout his life. Even so, his years on Anglesey left a real mark: he would greet Welsh audiences with "Cymru am Byth", and in 2005 he addressed the Welsh Assembly on drug policy at the invitation of a Welsh politician. He died on 28 December 2015, four days after his 70th birthday.