Nearly four decades ago, Thelma Adams sat half naked in a bathtub of cold milk wearing a Cleopatra-style wig and was towed through the streets of a Welsh town. At the time the stunt - designed to to highlight an unfolding crisis in the farming industry - brought Carmarthen town to a standstill but did little to stop the introduction of controversial European milk quotas in April 1984.
Thelma, then 46, was trying to highlight how it was cheaper to bathe in milk than water, as the price of milk plummeted. Now aged 84, Thelma is a diminutive woman still with a glint in her eye that hints at someone who's lived an intriguing life. Following the decimation of the dairy industry, Thelma and her husband Gwynfor went on to create Caws Cenarth, the artisan cheese company which sells to Waitrose and which this year received a Royal Warrant from HRH Prince Charles.
The go get them attitude seems to run in the family. Fast forward to the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, and Thelma's son, Carwyn Adams, now managing director of Caws Cenarth, was facing the loss of his family business as he had nowhere to sell thousands of cheese truckles produced for the imminent Easter period.
