COMEDIAN and writer Ben Elton has said he owes his life to the actions of a headmaster at a private school in Colwyn Bay.

The Young Ones and Blackadder writer’s father and paternal grandparents were German Jews living in Prague, who fled to the UK in 1939 to escape Nazi persecution.

Their escape was made possible when Rydal Penrhos, in Colwyn Bay, offered his father and uncle scholarships.

A series of "amazing coincidences" eventually led to his father and uncle securing a place at Rydal Penrhos.

A conversation on a train in Wales between two passengers, one of whom knew Elton’s grandmother, led to the pair being accepted by the school.

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Elton said his father and uncle, then aged 15 and 17, were given a place in a "cold school but with a very, very warm welcome".

"I kind of owe my life to a private school in north Wales," Elton told BBC Radio Wales.

Had Rydal Penrhos not offered them those places, they would have had to remain in Prague and would have all "undoubtedly" been murdered, Elton said.

"I'm the son of a refugee and I feel very strongly about the contribution that refugees have made to all the cultures they've gone to,” he said.

“My father and my uncle - I think that they gave back.”