Guest Speaker Don Llewelyn
It was a great pleasure to meet Don Llewelyn who was guest speaker at our last meeting of the Autumn session. In his working life Don had been a television director, although when leaving art college his interest had been still photography. He had worked in every aspect of television when in 1981 he went to work at the HTV studios in Culverhouse Cross (nicknamed the Taj Mahal).
His first big job there as a director found him following up on an idea that came from America which was to do a programme about an outdoor pursuits competition. This was all new to him and involved using a crew of 12-14 people which in itself was a challenge. There were several unconnected film units that were all over the place and as it was all about sport there was only one chance to film it. As the director he obviously knew the bigger picture and was responsible for every aspect of the final production.
He travelled extensively making programmes from various locations in America to Moscow and beyond. Whilst talking he showed us dozens of photographs on the big screen and this was just a snapshot of the many thousands he has at home. Many of the photographs showed the stunning locations he had filmed including some beautiful parts of Wales. In some instances he showed pictures of well known people he had worked with from Max Boyce to Catherine Zeta Jones. We spent much of the time star spotting.
While filming in America he became interested in the contribution Welsh people had made to America and whilst doing some research he came across a Welsh man called Murray Llewelyn Humphreys. This character turned out to be a top gangster who had created an alibi for Al Capone for the famous ‘Valentine’s Day Massacre’. Don subsequently made a documentary on the subject.
His career had obviously been a fascinating one but he emphasised on several occasions that he had been honoured and privileged to travel the world at other people’s expense while doing a job that he loved and meeting such interesting people along the way. He never considered it hard work.
We are grateful to Don for sharing his many experiences with us and his talk was a wonderful end to what has been an excellent session of Tuesday Group. Many thanks must go to Irene for arranging the speakers and we look forward to resuming once again in January. The programme for the Spring will be published in this edition of the What’s On and new members will always be welcome to join us in the annexe of the village hall at 7.30pm.