An award established in memory of former Guild member Bob Davies, a long-serving Wales correspondent for Farmers Weekly, has been presented to the founder of the production company behind Ffermio, the popular S4C TV programme that deals exclusively with agricultural issues.
Elin Rhys, managing director of Telesgop, was presented with the Bob Davies Memorial Award – a shepherd’s crook – by Farmers’ Union of Wales president Emyr Jones.
“Elin Rhys fully deserves to receive this award,” he says. “Not only for giving us the ever-popular Ffermioprogramme since 1997, but also for ensuring that her company provides so much important information to farmers and the wider audience.”
The award was established to celebrate the work of a media personality who has raised the public profile of Welsh farming; and to commemorate the life of Bob Davies, who died in 2009.
Elin Rhys started Teledu Telesgop in 1993 in the back room of the family home near Llandeilo. But within a few years, it was operating from an office in Llandeilo and then moved to Swansea, where the company now employs 35 full time staff specialising in agricultural, science and wildlife programmes.
Last December, Telesgop retained the contract for BBC Wales coverage of the Royal Welsh Show, after winning it back for another two years in an open tender. The company’s relationship with the Royal Welsh goes back over 15 years, having pioneered S4C’s live Welsh language coverage and winning the contract for the BBC in 2008.
“Being chosen for the FUW’s prestigious award is a great honour,” says Elin Rhys. “To be acknowledged in this way means a lot to me and I’m deeply grateful to the FUW for considering that I’m worthy of the award.”
