Steve Andrews

Cardiff-born Steve Andrews has been travelling and is now based in Portugal after spending nine years in Tenerife. He is also known as the Bard of Ely and was given this title by Big Issue Cymru magazine when he was a columnist in the late '90s. It refers to an estate he lived in Cardiff and not the Ely in Cambridgeshire.

Published by Moon Books, his latest book is The Magic of Butterflies and Moths. It looks at the magical transformation these insects undergo as they change from caterpillar into chrysalis and, finally, into an adult butterfly or moth.

Earth Spirit: Saving Mother Ocean was his penultimate book. It is about threats to the ocean and what is being done to save the seas. It explains the author's idea for Ocean Aid concerts worldwide. The book is endorsed by many notable people, including Captain Paul Watson of Sea Shepherd, and Global Youth Ambassador Lilly Platt.

Andrews is also the author of Herbs of the Northern Shaman, originally published by Loompanics Unlimited in 2000 and republished in October 2010 by O-Books/Moon Books. This book has additional text as well as all new colour photos by Katrinia Rindsberg. As the title suggests, it is about herbs with mind-altering properties, herbs that have been used by shamans and also in witchcraft. Herbs of the Southern Shaman followed it in 2019, and was also published by Moon Books.

His autobiographical memoirs eBook Hummadruz and a Life of High Strangeness was published by Amazon Kindle. It focuses on the author's paranormal, spiritual and mystical experiences.

He also has an anthology of poetry and song lyrics edited by his former partner Melissa Houghton. It is entitled The Bard Word and is also available on Amazon Kindle.

Andrews has written for Prediction and the National Federation of Occupational Pensioners magazines in collaboration with C.J. Stone, and on his own for Kindred Spirit, Bee Culture The Magazine of American Beekeeping, Permaculture, Living Tenerife, Pagan Dawn, Celtic Life International, MyHerbs, Welsh Coastal Life, SWND, Mediterranean Gardening and Outdoor Living, and The Magical Times magazines. He was a columnist for the Tenerife Weekly, the Tenerife Sun and a contributor to Tenerife News.

As a singer and musician he performed at Glastonbury and the Green Man festivals and was a compère for the Avalon stage at Glastonbury in 2002 and 2003. He is currently making news with his song Where Does All The Plastic Go?, which was produced by Jayce Lewis. An album entitled Songs of the Now and Then was also produced by Lewis and was released on bandcamp in 2019. Other songs entitled "A Real Love and Communication" and "Climb Through A Rainbow, also produced by Lewis have since been released, as well as song with the title "Mother Nature Rap," which was produced in Portugal by Ricardo Verdelho of Verdelho Studios, and a music video was created for this song by Pedro Augusto Almeida.

In 2017, Andrews was featured on Britain's Got Talent, where he performed his cover of "Stand By Me."

As the Bard of Ely, Andrews has songs released on the Taffia EP on Crai Records in 2002 and on the Green Man Festival album in 2003. It was for the Green Man Festival that he first dyed his beard green.

In 1998, he worked as a TV presenter for two series of In Full View, a magazine series on BBC Choice.

Besides being a published author himself, Steve Andrews is written about in detail in C.J. Stone's Fierce Dancing, in The Last of the Hippies and in Housing Benefit Hill, in Peter Finch's Real Cardiff, in Christopher James Stone and Arthur Pendragon's Trials of Arthur, in Anthony Reynolds's Leonard Cohen: A Remarkable Life. and in Lionel and Patricia Fanthorpe's The World's Most Mysterious People. Peter Finch has also mentioned Andrews in Edging The City and in Walking Cardiff. Italian author and radio host, Filippo Solibello, in SPAM: Stop Plastica A Mare, included a 4-page chapter about Andrews and his song about plastic pollution.