Wynford Vaughan-Thomas

Thomas was born in Swansea, in South Wales, the second son of Dr. David Vaughan Thomas, a Professor of Music, and Morfydd Lewis, the daughter of Daniel Lewis who was one of the leaders of the Rebecca Riots in Pontarddulais.{{Citation | title = From Fountain to River: Dylan Thomas and the Bont | first1 = D | last1 = John | first2 = DN | last2 = Thomas | journal = Cambria |date=Autumn 2010 | url = https://sites.google.com/site/dylanthomaspontardulais/home}}. He was the older brother of Hugh Vaughan-Thomas.{{Cite web |title=Hugh Vaughan-Thomas |url=https://www.cricketmuseum.wales/hugh-vaughan-thomas/ }}{{Dead link|date=December 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}

He attended Swansea Grammar School, in the Mount Pleasant district of Swansea.{{cite book |last1=Vaughan-Thomas |first1=Wynford |title=Trust to Talk |date=1980 |publisher=Hutchinson |page= 39|location=London |isbn=9780091438708}} At Exeter College, Oxford, he read modern history and gained a second class academic degree.{{cite DWB|id=s8-VAUG-WYN-1908|title=Vaughan-Thomas, Lewis John Wynford (1908-1987), broadcaster, author and public figure|author=D. Ben Rees|year=2011|access-date=8 January 2025}}

In the mid-1930s, Vaughan-Thomas joined the BBC and, in 1937, gave the Welsh-language commentary on the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. This was the precursor to several English-language commentaries on state occasions he was to give after the Second World War. During the war, he established his name and reputation as one of the BBC's most distinguished war correspondents. His most memorable report was from an RAF Lancaster bomber during a real bombing raid over Nazi Berlin. Other notable reports were from the Battle of Anzio, the Burgundy vineyards, Lord Haw-Haw's broadcasting studio and the Belsen concentration camp.

In 1953, he was one of a team of BBC commentators on the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. He commentated on the funeral of his fellow wartime BBC correspondent Richard Dimbleby in 1965.

In 1967, after leaving the BBC, Vaughan-Thomas was one of the founders of Harlech Television (HTV, now ITV Wales), being appointed director of programmes. As a frequent TV broadcaster himself throughout his early career with the BBC, he had adopted the required BBC accent of the time, but employed his more natural native Welsh accent to even better effect in his later career.

He served as a Governor of the British Film Institute between 1977 and 1980.{{Cite book |last=Hartman |first=Doug |title=King of the Con Men |last2=Day |first2=Roger |publisher=Lion Publishing |year=1995 |isbn=0-7459-3123-5 |location=Oxford |pages=52}}

In 1985, Vaughan-Thomas notably presented the 13-part series The Dragon Has Two Tongues with Gwyn Alf Williams. The series saw lengthy and often passionate discussions on Welsh history, with the two presenters representing opposing points of view, Williams being a Marxist historian and Vaughan-Thomas being described by Geraint H. Jenkins as his "affable Whiggish co-presenter".McArthur, Colin, "Tele-history:The Dragon Has Two Tongues", in Parker, Geoff (ed.), Cencrastus No. 21, Summer 1985, pp. 40 - 42, {{issn|0264-0856}}{{cite web|url=https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2019/03/21/the-dragon-has-two-tongues-again/|title=The Dragon Has Two Tongues Again|website=Bella Caledonia|date=21 March 2019|author=Rob Brown|access-date=13 March 2021}}{{cite DWB |last1=Jenkins |first1=Geraint H. |author1-link=Geraint H. Jenkins |title=Williams, Gwyn Alfred (1925-1995), historian and television presenter |id=s8-WILL-ALF-1925 |date=1 May 2013}}

Vaughan-Thomas wrote numerous books, many on Wales and a favourite subject of his, the Welsh countryside.

His wartime overview and experiences, and his successful broadcasting career later, enabled him to view life and its vagaries with what he called "pointless optimism"—a perspective that served him.

His 1961 book Anzio was adapted as the 1968 Italian-American film Anzio, about the Battle of Anzio, the Allied seaborne assault on the Italian port of Anzio south of Rome during the Second World War.

In May 1970, when president of the Council for the Protection of Rural Wales, Vaughan-Thomas officially opened the Pembrokeshire Coast Path in the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park at its southern end, at Amroth.

In 1946, Thomas married Charlotte Rowlands.{{Cite book |doi=10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U170001|chapter=Vaughan-Thomas, (Lewis John) Wynford, (15 Aug. 1908–4 Feb. 1987), radio and television commentator since 1937; author, journalist; Director, Harlech Television Ltd|title=Who Was Who|year=2007}}

He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1974 Birthday Honours for services to Wales,{{London Gazette |issue=46310 |date=7 June 1974 |page=6804 |supp=y}} and promoted Commander (CBE) in the 1986 Birthday Honours for services to Welsh culture.{{London Gazette |issue=50551 |date=13 June 1986 |page=8 |supp=y}}

He died in Fishguard, Pembrokeshire, on 4 February 1987, aged 78.

File:Vaughan-Thomas toposcope - Wales.jpg

A memorial was constructed after his death, completed and unveiled in 1990 at Cadair viewpoint, near Aberhosan (at {{small|{{coord|52.5489|-3.7183|display=inline|region:GB_type:landmark|name=Vaughan-Williams memorial toposcope}}}}), in the form of a toposcope looking out over the rolling hills and mountains of Wales, with a depiction of Vaughan-Thomas pointing towards Snowdon, Wales' highest peak, which is just visible on a clear day.{{cite web|url=http://website.lineone.net/~dyfival1/histaberhos.htm/ |title=Wynford Vaughan Thomas |access-date=10 January 2022 |url-status = dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090806074755/http://website.lineone.net/~dyfival1/histaberhos.htm |archive-date=6 August 2009}} Across the hills towards Yr Wyddfa and the Snowdonia National Park

• Anzio (1961)
• Madly in All Directions (1967)
• The Shell Guide to Wales (1969, with Alun Llewellyn)
• Portrait of Gower (1976)
• Great Little Trains Of Wales (1976)
• Trust to Talk (1980)
• Wynford Vaughan-Thomas's Wales (1981)
• Princes of Wales (1982)
• The Countryside Companion (1983)
• Dalgety (1984)
• Wales: a History (1985)
• How I Liberated Burgundy: And Other Vinous Adventures (1985)

{{Reflist}}

{{cite book | title = The Dictionary of National Biography, Vol. 12: 1986-1990 | isbn = 9780266613534 | first = Christine Stephanie | last = Nicholls | publisher = Forgotten Books | date = December 2018 }}

• {{cite book |last1=Vaughan-Thomas |first1=Wynford |title=Trust to Talk |date=1980 |publisher=Hutchinson |location=London |isbn=9780091438708}} – autobiography

{{Commons category|Wynford Vaughan-Thomas}}

• {{IMDb name|id=0891132|name=Wynford Vaughan-Thomas}}
• [https://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/history/media/categories/ww2.shtml BBC Wales History]
• [https://www.bbc.co.uk/cymru/cymruaryrawyr/database/wynfford.shtml BBC Cymru]
• [https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn510182 Thames Television Interview from 1972]
• [https://archives.library.wales/index.php/wynford-vaughan-thomas-papers-2 Wynford Vaughan-Thomas Papers] at the National Library of Wales

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Category:1908 births

Category:1987 deaths

Category:Welsh-language television presenters

Category:Welsh-speaking journalists

Category:British male journalists

Category:Mass media people from Swansea

Category:People educated at Bishop Gore School

Category:Alumni of Exeter College, Oxford

Category:Welsh journalists

Category:Welsh radio presenters

Category:Welsh television presenters

Category:BBC newsreaders and journalists

Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire

Category:20th-century British journalists

Category:20th-century British male writers

Category:20th-century Welsh writers

Category:Governors of the British Film Institute