Diolch, Llywydd. Can I begin by offering the sympathies of the whole Chamber to Julie and the family after the shocking news that they received. I’m sure all Members will want to join me in those sentiments.

Last week there was a leader’s debate, which some of us took part in, in Penarth. When I left that debate, as soon as I left the chamber the debate had taken place in, I received the news that Rhodri had passed away.

Hywel Rhodri Morgan was named after two kings, and he served in this place with distinction as First Minister for nearly 10 years. There are many of us who knew him, had the honour of knowing him, for many of those years, and we will all, I’m sure, in the course of the next hour or so, share some of the experiences, so many of them pleasant, all of them pleasant, that we had in his company.

The first time I met him was in the summer of 1997 in the Metropole hotel in Llandrindod Wells. The ‘Yes for Wales’ campaign had organised a weekend event there to discuss campaigning for the forthcoming devolution referendum in the September of that year. I remember watching that evening a rugby match—USA versus Wales—with Rhodri and Kevin Brennan. Rhodri was a great sports fan, as we know, and I first had experience of the wit that he had, because the game was being played on what seemed to be a public park and, behind the posts, there were no terraces, no stands, but woodland, and Rhodri, in the course of the game, had to say, ‘I’ve never seen such a well camouflaged crowd’. I remember it was the first time I’d heard him speak and he then started to speak to me, and that’s the first time I had a conversation with him.

He was very proud to have been First Secretary, as it was in 2000, and subsequently First Minister, a role, of course, he filled in every way in his time in that role. Llywydd, he was pretty much the same age as my father—10 months younger than my father—and I saw him very much as part of that generation. He was, to me, somebody who I saw as a father figure in politics. The phrase ‘father of the nation’ has been used, but certainly he was somebody who I very much looked up to. He was somebody who commanded such respect, but, of course, he was somebody who was down to earth.

Fe ddywedaf i stori yn Gymraeg achos dim ond yn Gymraeg mae’n gweithio. Achos y ffaith bod Rhodri llawer yn henach na fi, roeddwn i’n wastod yn galw ‘chi’ arno fe. Ar ôl amser, fe ddywedodd e, ‘Grinda, fachgen’—roedd e wastad yn galw ‘bachgen’ arnaf i—‘mae’n rhaid i ti nawr alw “ti” arnaf i’. Roedd hi’n anodd, wrth gwrs, i’r rheini ohonom ni sy’n siarad Cymraeg, i newid yn y ffordd yna. Ond, dyna beth wnes i. Fe fues i’n siarad gyda fy mam-gu, a oedd yn fyw bryd hynny, ac fe ddywedais wrthi hi fy mod i’n galw ‘ti’ ar Rhodri. ‘Beth?’, meddai hi, ‘Beth? Ti’n galw “ti” ar Rhodri Morgan? Does dim parch ’da ti?’

Ie, wel, digon o barch, mae hynny’n siŵr. Ond, nid oedd gan Rhodri—ac rwy’n mynd i ddefnyddio’r gair sy’n cael ei ddefnyddio yn Nyffryn Aman a Chwm Tawe—nid oedd ‘clemau’ gyda fe; ‘airs and graces’ yw’r cyfieithiad neu’r dehongliad yn Saesneg.

Rhodri was somebody who commanded great respect, but, for him, there was no ceremony, no airs and graces. What I am now as a politician I owe to him. He was the person who gave me my opportunity, in July 2000, to become Agriculture and Rural Development Secretary, as the title was then. These days, when we have Cabinet reshuffles, they take place on a pre-arranged schedule, they’re planned beforehand. He rang me at 10.30 p.m. on a Saturday night to tell me that I’d been promoted to the Cabinet and would I join him on the way to the Royal Welsh two days later. So, there was no notice given—that was the way that Rhodri was, ringing at that time on a Saturday night.

Many of us will remember the foot and mouth crisis of 2001. Rhodri’s view was that, as a young Minister, I had to get on with it, that it was my responsibility, but he was there to give help and guidance and support if it was needed. But he never interfered. He let me learn, he let me deal with the situation, but he was there if I needed his advice, and I very much valued that. It was truly an honour for me, in December 2009, to succeed him.

Rhodri was very much a family man. He delighted in his family. He delighted in his grandchildren. He spoke with much pride about all his family. For those who have been to his house, he had a set of rugby posts there and he had a copse where he’d often light little fires where people could gather. For him, family was everything.

When he left active politics, he was determined to take up other interests that time had prevented him from doing in the years gone by. He started learning the piano. For those of us who remember him as First Minister, when he couldn’t turn a computer on, he became somebody who was a great technophile, and I used to pull his leg that pretty soon he’d be dominating Twitter. He loved his garden. He was a great gardener. Many people in this Chamber, and outside, will have the experience of going to Rhodri’s house and being presented quite often with a cabbage from the garden, fresh from the soil, often with the soil still on it, I remember, but he delighted in that. His pride in his garden was something that was obvious to all.

He had a fantastic bank of knowledge about everything. It was amazing what he could recall. Particularly, he had an encyclopaedic knowledge of sport that went back to the 1940s. I often think that Rhodri would have been a fantastic pub quiz team companion, given his great knowledge on almost any subject. There was literally nothing I felt that he knew nothing about. He could always tell you something new about almost any subject. Rhodri was a hugely intelligent man with a fine mind, but he was at home with anybody. He had a remarkable talent for remembering people’s names. He would meet people 10 years on from their original, and perhaps only, meeting and he would remember their names and remember what they had said to him. How he did it, I don’t know, but it was incredible, and it was one of the things that he did and so many people remarked on that. It went so far in the public mind in associating him with being somebody who had a deep interest in other people. He was a great mixer and a great character, and he will be missed by his family, of course, but so many people around Wales and beyond.

Yr wythnos diwethaf, fe gollom ni un o gewri’r genedl. Mae e wedi mynd, ond mae ei enw e, wrth gwrs, wedi’i ysgrifennu mewn i’n hanes.

Last week, we lost one of our nation’s giants. He may be gone, but his name is written into our history.