![Pinterest](https://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https://uknews.evprotec.com/happy-mondays-wales-saved-my-life-says-bez/&media=https://uknews.evprotec.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/127518631_bez.jpg&description=Image source, PA MediaImage caption, Bez has been embracing the Welsh countryside and culture"Wales probably saved my life."Mark "Bez" Berry is best known as the dancer and maraca-toting face of '80s and '90s "Madchester" band Happy Mondays.His drug and alcohol-fuelled life saw him rise to the highs of Glastonbury and the lows of Strangeways.Yet after meeting what he described as "some aristocratic Welsh hippy sorts", he turned his life around on a commune near Swansea and lives with his wife on the Welsh borders in Herefordshire.He said: "In the early 2000s it was all starting to get a little bit too much for me. I was hitting 40, and knew I'd be lucky to see 50 the way I was going."I've also always been really keen on saving the planet and that, so when I met these guys at Glastonbury who showed me a sustainable way of managing myself as well as the land, it all started to make sense to me."After seeing off near bankruptcy following his time in Happy Mondays, Bez went "off grid" to rediscover himself.He spent several years living on Cwm Yr Heol Farm in Pontardawe, Neath Port Talbot, learning to grow organic vegetables, tend livestock, and most importantly for him, keep bees."The top bloke there was a guy called Godfrey, he reminded me of my grandfather, and taught me everything I know today about living off the land," he said."I've taken it all in, but the most exciting thing for me was learning about bees; they said so much to me."Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Bez and Happy Mondays singer Shaun Ryder performing in 1989Bez saw something of his own stage act in his bees when they found nectar and alerted the rest of the hive.He said: "They'd shake about and wiggle their bums just like I did, it made me warm to them straight away."Then I learnt more and more about their lifestyles and habitats and I was hooked, I knew that's what I wanted to do with my life."Bez bought his first hive for £50 15 years ago, and despite some early accidents - including leavi){kind=link}
“Wales probably saved my life.”
Mark “Bez” Berry is best known as the dancer and maraca-toting face of ’80s and ’90s “Madchester” band Happy Mondays.
His drug and alcohol-fuelled life saw him rise to the highs of Glastonbury and the lows of Strangeways.
Yet after meeting what he described as “some aristocratic Welsh hippy sorts”, he turned his life around on a commune near Swansea and lives with his wife on the Welsh borders in Herefordshire.
He said: “In the early 2000s it was all starting to get a little bit too much for me. I was hitting 40, and knew I’d be lucky to see 50 the way I was going.