Y Sioe 09: Gwawrio
Y Sioe 09
- Gwawrio
- Pencampwyr
- Y Ffermwyr Ifanc
- Stiwardiaid
- Cneifio
Y Sioe 09: Pencampwyr
The Show that never sleeps
Visitors are used to seeing the Royal Welsh showground at Llanelwedd as a hive of activity during the four days of the Show in late July.
But what's it like in the early hours of the morning? In the S4C programme Y Sioe 09: Gwawrio (Dawning) we get a chance to visit the showground before most visitors, competitors and stallholders are awake. It's a very different place then to what we're used to seeing during Show week.
This is the first of five programmes to be shown on S4C during the rest of the summer showing different aspects of this year's Show.
The other four programmes will feature the Show Champions, the Young Farmers' Clubs activities, the stewards and the sheep-shearing competitions.
Meal for the day
There's no lie-in either for Mair Hatcher and her staff from caterers, Cegin Gwennog, who prepare breakfast from 6.30am onwards in the Stockman's Pavilion for several hundred people.
"It means getting up about five o'clock every day," says Mair, who's been catering at the Royal Welsh for many years, including ten years at the Stockman's Pavilion. As well as providing breakfast, Mair, who lives in Llanwennog, near Llanybydder, and her 40 staff make lunches, suppers and snacks in the Stockman's. "Sometimes it feels as if we're feeding the whole of Wales," she adds.
Waking up to compete
Among those rising early to prepare their animals are 22 year-old Geraint Jenkins who, along with his father, Dilwyn and brother, Eifion, run the Caran herd of Welsh Black cattle on their farm, Cerrig Caranau, Talybont, near Aberystwyth.
On the first morning of the show, Geraint got up at 4.30am to wash and prepare the cow and calf they were showing this year. Geraint's great grandfather was a winner at the very first Royal Welsh held in Aberystwyth in 1904 with a heifer from the Caran herd.
A hundred years later in 2004, the family won the same competition - for two year-old heifers - at the centenary show in Llanelwedd. Geraint is seen on duty in the early hours.
The programme also features the night watchman in the sheep pens, the fur and feather section and the pig and cattle areas.