Lowri Gwilym (born Lowri Williams; 14 October 1954 – 21 July 2010) was a Welsh

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

and

radio producer A radio producer oversees the making of a radio show. The job title covers several different job descriptions: *Content producers or executive producers oversee and orchestrate a radio show or feature. The content producer might organize music choi ...

. She worked for

BBC Wales BBC Cymru Wales is a division of the BBC and the main public broadcaster in Wales. It is one of the four BBC national regions, alongside the BBC English Regions, BBC Northern Ireland and BBC Scotland. Established in 1964, BBC Cymru Wales is ...

and the Welsh-language channel S4C.

Early life

Gwilym was born Lowri Williams on 14 October 1954 in

Aberystwyth Aberystwyth () is a university and seaside town as well as a community in Ceredigion, Wales. Located in the historic county of Cardiganshire, means "the mouth of the Ystwyth". Aberystwyth University has been a major educational location in ...

. Her parents were Daisy and

David Gwyn Williams Professor David Gwyn Williams, usually known simply as Gwyn Williams (24 August 1904 – 24 December 1990) was a Welsh poet, novelist, translator and academic. Born in Port Talbot, he was educated at the University College of Wales and Jesus ...

, a writer and academic. She grew up in Turkey and Libya, where her father was an English professor. When she was 18, she changed her surname from Williams to the Welsh form, Gwilym. She studied the

Welsh language Welsh ( or ) is a Celtic language family, Celtic language of the Brittonic languages, Brittonic subgroup that is native to the Welsh people. Welsh is spoken natively in Wales, by some in England, and in Y Wladfa (the Welsh colony in Chubut P ...

Bangor University , former_names = University College of North Wales (1884–1996) University of Wales, Bangor (1996–2007) , image = File:Arms_of_Bangor_University.svg , image_size = 250px , caption = Arms ...

and completed a

Master of Letters The Master of Letters degree (MLitt or LittM; Latin ' or ') is a postgraduate degree. Ireland Trinity College Dublin and Maynooth University offer MLitt degrees. Trinity has offered them the longest, owing largely to its tradition as Ireland ...

at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

. She then lectured at the

University of Bologna The University of Bologna ( it, Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna, UNIBO) is a public research university in Bologna, Italy. Founded in 1088 by an organised guild of students (''studiorum''), it is the oldest university in continuo ...

for two years.

Career

Gwilym joined

in the 1980s and produced and directed numerous documentary television programmes over two decades. These included the Welsh-language series ''O Flaen dy Lygaid'' (''Before Your Very Eyes'') and the English-language series ''Women in Politics''. In the late 1980s she produced documentaries about various women in politics, including

Eugenia Charles Dame Mary Eugenia Charles, (15 May 1919 – 6 September 2005) was a Dominican politician who was Prime Minister of Dominica from 21 July 1980 until 14 June 1995. The first female lawyer in Dominica, she was Dominica's first, and to date only, fe ...

Simone Veil Simone Veil (; ; 13 July 1927 – 30 June 2017) was a French magistrate and politician who served as Health Minister in several governments and was President of the European Parliament from 1979 to 1982, the first woman to hold that office. A ...

Tatyana Zaslavskaya Tatyana Ivanovna Zaslavskaya (russian: Татьяна Ивановна Заславская, April 9, 1927 – August 23, 2013) was a Russian economic sociologist and a theoretician of perestroika. She was the prime author of the Novosibirsk ...

and

Benazir Bhutto Benazir Bhutto ( ur, بینظیر بُھٹو; sd, بينظير ڀُٽو; Urdu ; 21 June 1953 – 27 December 2007) was a Pakistani politician who served as the 11th and 13th prime minister of Pakistan from 1988 to 1990 and again from 1993 t ...

. She also worked as a freelance

and created the radio show ''Beti a'i Phobol'' (''Beti and Her People''), hosted by

Beti George Beti George (born 19 January 1939) is a Welsh broadcaster of television and radio. She began working for the BBC in Swansea and was best known for presenting the nightly Welsh-language news programme, ''Newyddion''. Since 1987 she has presented ...

, for BBC Wales. Gwilym was hired by S4C, a Welsh-language television channel, in 2004 as the editor for factual programmes and co-productions. Her productions for S4C included ''O'r Galon'' (''From the Heart''), ''Wynebau Newydd'' (''New Faces''), ''

Cefn Gwlad ''Cefn Gwlad'' is a Welsh television series about the countryside and particularly (but not exclusively) farming in Wales. It is broadcast in Welsh. Hosted by Dai Jones (''"Llanilar"'') until 2020, it looks at rural life in Wales, and sometimes ...

'' (''Countryside''), ''Ffermio'' (''Farming''), and nature programmes hosted by

Iolo Williams Iolo Tudur Williams (; ; born 22 August 1962) is a Welsh ornithologist, nature observer, television presenter and author, best known for his BBC and S4C nature programmes, working in both English and his first language of Welsh. After a 14-year ...

. She was a content editor on the current-affairs programmes ''

Y Byd ar Bedwar ' ( Welsh for ''The World on Four'') is a Welsh-language current affairs television programme, which has broadcast on S4C since the channel was launched in November 1982. It is produced by ITV Cymru Wales. The programme's reporters have brou ...

'' (''The World on Four'') and ''

Wedi 7 () is a nightly Welsh language television magazine programme, formerly broadcast by S4C. Produced by Tinopolis, it was the half-hour sister programme to a full-hour (). Description The Welsh-language television programme was first broadcast ...

'' (''After 7''). In 2010, she won a

BAFTA Cymru BAFTA Cymru (or BAFTA in Wales or WAFTA) is the Welsh branch of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) and was founded in 1987.

award for her on ''Dwy Wraig Lloyd George'' (''The Two Wives of Lloyd George'').

Death

Gwilym died of a sudden

cerebral hemorrhage Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), also known as cerebral bleed, intraparenchymal bleed, and hemorrhagic stroke, or haemorrhagic stroke, is a sudden bleeding into the tissues of the brain, into its ventricles, or into both. It is one kind of bleed ...

on 21 July 2010; she was 55 years old. Her partner was the television journalist Meic Birtwistle, with whom she had two sons, Ifan and Glyn.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gwilym, Lowri 1954 births 2010 deaths Welsh television producers British radio producers British women television producers Welsh-language broadcasters People from Aberystwyth Alumni of Bangor University Alumni of the University of Oxford Women radio producers