Around the world in 90 years: A life spent championing British farming across the globe

In Alun Evans's lounge is a framed picture of pen-and-ink drawings depicting a long and illustrious career that saw him criss-cross the globe to promote Welsh and British farming. There's Buckingham Palace, where he received both an OBE and a CBE for his services to agriculture; Tokyo, which he visited on many occasions as chairman of the British Wool Marketing Board - the only Welshman ever to hold the position - and the Royal Welsh Show in Builth Wells, which he fronted for seven years.

Titled "Alun's Journey", the picture also features a sketch of the Canadian Rockies, under the heading "Travel with Janet," his beloved wife of nearly 67 years who died last December aged 89. It was Janet who (with daughter Elspeth) gave Alun the picture, and it was Janet who held the fort at their Bryncrug hill farm while he represented Welsh farmers' interests across the UK and championed British agricultural produce throughout the world.

"Janet didn't often accompany me on business - she helped to run the farm and looked after our three children, Elspeth, Richard and Dylan - but we did travel together away from work," explains Alun. "Once, when I won a cash prize as part of an award, I said: 'I'm going to buy a bull with the money', to which she replied: 'Oh no you're not; we're going on a trans-Canada rail journey'!" The memorable trip included a stopover in Vancouver, where Janet - a piano teacher for 40 years - met up with one of her former students from Tywyn.

"When Janet died, we received about 250 letters and cards from people she had known - including many from those she'd taught," says Alun.

The couple met when they were both 18. Janet, from Wolverhampton, was on holiday with her parents, staying at Dolgoch Falls. A friend of Alun's introduced them at the Easter fair in Tywyn. Four years later they were married. 

Janet pictured in about 1990

Dylan now runs the 350-acre Caerffynnon Farm on the slopes above Rhyd-yr-onnen, but Alan - who turns 90 in May - still mucks in, helping to feed the 1,000 sheep and 60 cattle. 

The farm has been in the family since 1940, when Alun's father bought it for £2,200. 

"My father was a tenant farmer at Morfa Farm in Tywyn when I was born, but then the War Ministry took it over to put a landing strip on it. The tenant at Caerffynnon was retiring and it came onto the market. I was six when we moved - the RAF carried all our stuff up here. The farmhouse, which was built by a man called John Roberts, had a chalybeate spring at the back. People used to come up to drink the water because it was very rich in iron, and Janet drank it too when she was expecting the children."

Alun left school at 16 to work on the farm. "My father was in his 60s by then, so I was needed. We were still using horses for ploughing, although after about a year we bought our first tractor - a little Fergie - which cost £295."

Alun's first major task was to clear the land of heather and bracken. "It was everywhere, and it limited the number of sheep we could keep," he recalls. "I spent the first ten to 15 years ploughing the hills and collecting stones. My memorial is all over the mountains - piles of stones! As I improved the land, so we were able to add to our sheep stock."

Alun made his first mark in the farming world during the 1960s, when he came up with the idea of sheep housing - a practice previously unheard of in the hill-farming community.

"At that time, you never put a Welsh Mountain sheep indoors for anything, and it was said that you don't feed a Welsh Mountain ewe at all, but I thought I would! Winters were harsh then - harsher than they are now - and carrying the stock we had over the cold months was a problem. By housing the sheep and feeding them, I was able to carry the summer stock numbers over the winter. Now it's general practice to put your sheep inside for lambing, but when I introduced it, it attracted quite a lot of attention. The advisory body ADAS invited me to speak at meetings in various places."

This pioneering work led to Alun being awarded a Nuffield Farming Scholarship in 1969 to study hill farming in the UK. "It enabled me to go to research stations to see what was happening."

The '70s brought a new career opportunity for Alun: he answered an advert for someone to run a hill farm in Abergynolwyn that had been bought by a London-based company. "The idea was to mix forestry with farming, and they needed help on the farming side," he explains. "They wanted to extend the model to other parts of the country and asked if I'd look after Scotland and Wales." Alun ended up managing several farms in mid-Wales and six in Scotland for several years. Then the Abergynolwyn farm was put up for sale - and Alun and Dylan bought it. "We still farm the land now."

Alun pictured in about 1990

By the 1980s, Alun was becoming increasingly involved in the politics of farming, and in 1982 he was elected chairman of the National Farmers' Union (NFU) in Wales. This was the time EU milk quotas were introduced to curb the "milk lakes" and "butter mountains" resulting from dairy farmers facing an uncertain future.

"I was in the middle of all that," remembers Alun. "Luckily, I had men to help me on the farm while I was away meeting farmers in other parts of Wales. And Janet was here too."

In 1985, Alun was appointed chairman of the British Wool Marketing Board (BWMB), based in Bradford, West Yorkshire. 

"It was all about attracting people to buy British wool, and it took me all over the world; for example, to Beijing, where I spoke at the China World Trade Center, and to Nepal - the rug on the floor of my lounge came from Kathmandu. British wool is better for carpets than Australian or New Zealand because it's bulkier."

With the Japanese futon market reliant on British wool, the BWMB had an office in Tokyo. It was during one visit that Alun's team came up with the quirky idea of staging sheepdog trials on the flat roof of the city's equivalent to Harrods. "The traders selling British wool in Japan were looking to put their products into a major store, so we came up with something a bit different," recalls Alun. "We brought two sheepdogs over from Northern Ireland and the trials were held every day for a week on the roof. It was a huge success: the store was packed out and at every vantage point there was a British wool seller displaying their wares."

In 1990, Alun added another desk to his office tally when he was appointed chairman of NFU Mutual Insurance Group, the UK's biggest rural insurer, based in Stratford-upon-Avon. Again, he is the only Welshman ever to have held the position. A year after that, he came chairman of Welsh Food Promotions, set up to create an image of Welsh food around the world. 

"By this time, I had secretaries all over the place," smiles Alun. "Someone might try to get hold of me on the phone and be told, 'he's somewhere between Bradford and Stratford'!"

And still the appointments and awards came thick and fast: he was governor at Tywyn Secondary School, a tax commissioner, the Wales representative on the Hill Farming Research Organisation in Scotland, and Deputy and Vice-Lord Lieutenant of Gwynedd. He was also invited to join the Gorsedd of the National Eisteddfod of Wales. As well as an OBE and CBE, Alun received the Cherrington Award for Services to British Agriculture in 1991 and, three years later, the Massey Ferguson National Award for Outstanding Contribution of the Advancement of Agriculture in the UK.

Then, when he was in his early 60s, Alun retired from most of his paid roles and handed over the reins of the farm to Dylan. But "retirement" didn't last long: in 2006 he was appointed chairman of the Royal Welsh Agricultural Society. 

"The Royal Welsh Show is the biggest show of its kind in Britain, possibly in Europe, attracting about 250,000 people over the four days. It's the shop window for Welsh agriculture. My role was to lead a very good team to help it develop and grow."

Despite a glittering career that has seen him ride the Talyllyn Railway with the now-King and Queen, get flown to Paris for the Grand Prix, lunch with the late Queen Elizabeth and attend meetings at No10 Downing Street, Alun remains remarkably modest. Asked what he considers to be his biggest achievement for farmers, he replies: "All I did was to do my best for them." Then he adds: All this has been such a part of my life - I've been very lucky."

Caerffynnon Farm today

The farmhouse, famous for its chalybeate spring, circa 1900