I was a big football fan for a long time before I got to know any footballers. It soon became clear to me that they didn’t really understand what football fans go through. Conversely, I also realised that most football fans haven’t got a clue what footballers go through. I reached a similar conclusion when I worked with farmers. I didn’t understand what they were all about, and vice versa.
The scales fell from my eyes a year ago when I spent some time filming with a hill farmer called Emlyn near Dolgellau. I’d done a lot of walking in this kind of country and thought I had some understanding of what went on, but it turned out there was almost no assumption I’d made about his life and work that was anywhere near the mark. And it took making a television programme to educate me.
