Broadcaster and well-known voice of the BBC in Wales
NICOLA HEYWOODTHOMAS, who has died aged 67, was for many people the voice of the BBC in Wales, especially on Radio 3, where she introduced countless concerts in her warm, welcoming and erudite lilt.
A versatile broadcaster, she listed among her favourite jobs covering the devolution referendum for HTV Wales in 1997, and later the first elections to the National Assembly, now known as the Senedd.
Her skill at gliding elegantly from one genre to another earned her a Bafta Cymru award in 1993 for her tribute to the Welsh baritone Geraint Evans in Not a Bad Voice, a cameo role in Justin Kerrigan’s Baftanominated film Human Traffic (1999), and consultancy work for Arts and Business Cymru, through which she helped to forge closer links between the two sectors.
“I love opera, I don’t find it elitist,” she told the Western Mail in 2001. “I like music generally and theatre.” This passionate commitment to the arts came across when she presented the Cardiff Singer of the World competition. Being live, it represented for her the best kind of broadcasting. “The joy is having the chance to talk to such a range of people and find out new things,” she said.
Nicola Anne Heywoodthomas was born on May 10 1955 in Cardigan but was brought up in Manchester and Durham before returning to Wales to attend university in Cardiff, on one occasion singing the Countess in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. Her ambition was to work in a concert hall or theatre but she accepted a four-month contract with BBC Wales as a filing clerk.
She was soon doing research for several programmes and was offered a permanent position on the news programme Wales Today. “It was a classic right place, right time,” she explained.
After her marriage in 1983 to Grahame Lloyd, a fellow BBC journalist, she moved to HTV, where for more than 15 years she presented Wales at Six, recalling it as a show that “brings Wales together”.
On one occasion she interviewed a woman who took her pet baboon for a daily walk by the sea. While they were recording on the sands, a dog approached. The baboon panicked and the young reporter discovered the two reactions of a scared primate: one is to climb up the first thing it sees, in this case the woman with the microphone; the second was left to the audience’s imagination. “It’s enough to say I returned to the newsroom smelling less than pleasant,” she said.
In the early 1990s Nicola Heywood-thomas presented the HTV arts programme Primetime, taking pride in the success of Welsh stars in American musicals such as Michael Ball in Aspects of Love and Peter Karrie in Shogun. Gradually she moved into BBC radio, hosting phone-in programmes and presenting news, current affairs, music, literature and theatre.
She was fascinated by performers and artists, whether at the grassroots level or internationally, and on the Radio Wales Arts Show demonstrated a knack for bridging the gap between artist and audience. She also travelled beyond Wales to present Radio 3 concerts, including broadcasts from the Bath Festival.
While presenting the news she acquired a large collection of tailored jackets. “It didn’t really matter what we wore on the bottom, so I would keep an eye out for jackets in the sales,” she explained, when exploring her wardrobe for a newspaper feature that highlighted her love of large earrings.
Viewers and listeners often sent gifts and cards, including a woman in Pontypridd “who is always sending little knitted things for my children”.
Nicola Heywood-thomas continued to work during her treatment for cancer and made her last broadcast for Radio Wales in February. She and Lloyd had a son and two daughters.