My friend Richard Lewis, who has died aged 78, was a distinguished television producer and director, who worked for BBC Wales for more than 25 years. He was one of a new breed of broadcasting professionals who grasped the opportunity presented by still-rudimentary television in the 1960s, and made it into a medium by which the Welsh nation could become better known to its neighbours, and to itself.
Born in Ton Pentre, in the Rhondda Valley, the son of a Methodist minister and crowned Eisteddfod bard, the Rev L Haydn Lewis, and his wife, Lily (nee Lloyd), Richard was brought up in a Welsh-speaking, nonconformist household that imbued him with a lifelong commitment to Wales, its language and culture.
The local schools did not encourage the speaking of Welsh and he was forced to learn English. Nevertheless, he won a scholarship to Porth County grammar school and, although he was a talented artist, there loomed ahead another obstacle: the prospect of national service. Richard avoided it by qualifying as a biology teacher, but found his creativity stifled.
In 1961, he spotted an advert for a “temporary assistant floor manager” at the BBC in Cardiff. It was here, in the makeshift, black-and-white 405-line studios, built in the shell of an old chapel, that Richard found the outlet for his talents. Promoted to studio director in 1963, when I first met him in the news department, Richard worked on innovative news programmes including Wales Today and the first Welsh-language magazine programme, Heddiw.
In 1974, Richard, or Dic, as he was known to colleagues, was made head of documentaries and features, and began to make an impact beyond Wales. There followed a succession of compelling network dramas in close collaboration with the writer Paul Ferris, most notably Dylan: Life and Death of Poet (1982), Nye (1981), about Aneurin Bevan, the founding father of the NHS, and The Extremist (1984), on the attempted bombing of the Prince of Wales’s investiture in 1969. His collaboration with writers continued with William Nicholson, on the Bafta-winning, original television film Shadowlands, in 1985. He was also a mentor for many young people joining the corporation at that time.
After 27 prolific years at the BBC, Richard joined the independent production company Opus to produce and direct award-winning dramas for S4C, including Y Palmant Aur (The Golden Pavement, 1996), reflecting the fortunes of Welsh dairies in London, the poignant family drama Nel (1990) and Y Weithred (The Act, 1995), a dramatic account of the 1963 bomb-blast on a transformer at the Tryweryn dam construction site, in north Wales. The film posed the question: which was the greater outrage, the blast itself, or the flooding of Tryweryn valley?
He retired in 1997 to write poetry and spend more time with his family. He is survived by his wife, Bethan (nee Pierce), a teacher, whom he married in 1964, their three children, Elen, Siôn and Gwenllian, and six grandchildren.
