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I Was There

Series 3

When Foot & Mouth hit Wales

Duration: 28 minutes

First broadcast: on BBC Radio Wales MWLatest broadcast: on BBC Radio Wales FM

Mai Davies reunites those who could say I Was There at a flashpoint in Welsh history. This episode recalls the Foot and Mouth crisis of 2001 and its devastating impact on Welsh agriculture. Her three guests all experienced the crisis from different perspectives.

Anglesey farmer Gareth Wyn Jones remembers the huge psychological toll it took on his family as he and his heavily pregnant wife Rhian dealt with heartbreaking livestock losses across their 400 acres of farmland.

Former First Minister Carwyn Jones - then the 34-year-old newly appointed Agriculture Minister for Wales - recalls how it was a make or break period for him as a politician as the crisis, bigger than anyone expected, unfolded. And journalist and farmer Nia Thomas describes how she was plunged straight into the biggest story of her career after being made BBC Wales' first Rural Affairs Correspondent just a few weeks before the outbreak.

All three reflect on the emotional as well as the economic cost of Foot and Mouth to Wales as images of animal pyres and rivers running red with the blood of culled livestock were seared into their memories. Show less

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