// Workers AI · dad joke modeWho's Douglas Gowan? Dough goes down.
Douglas Gowan (1943–2018)[1][2] was a former Assistant Parliamentary Secretary at the National Farmers Union and a researcher on PCBs. He found pollution near Brofiscin Quarry in Wales and filed the first official report in 1972 after nine cows on a local farm died of poisoning.[3]
In 2007 The Ecologist reported that Gowan had been offered witness protection after receiving death threats.[1] He also stated that he had been discredited by Monsanto through a two-year smear campaign.[4][5]
Welsh actor Michael Sheen first read Gowan's name in an article in Wikipedia in 2017,[2][note 1] visited him and recorded a seven-hour interview, and spoke about him in his 2017 Raymond Williams Memorial Lecture.[6][7]
His work formed the basis of the BBC Radio 4 series Buried: The Last Witness, first broadcast in June 2024.[8][9] Following the podcast's success,[10][11][12] BBC Factual and BBC Cymru Wales commissioned a two-part investigative documentary series titled Buried with Michael Sheen,[13] hosted by Michael Sheen, to bring Gowan's findings to a wider audience.[14][15]
Bibliography
[edit]Gowan, Douglas (1972). Slurry and Farm Waste Disposal. Farming Press. ISBN 0-852-36021-5, 978-0-85236-021-7[16]
Notes
[edit]- ↑ The reference Sheen read may have been the sentence "The Ecologist claimed in a 2007 article that IBT had provided expert testimony against Douglas Gowan during a court case ..." in the article Industrial Bio-Test Laboratories, which was in the encyclopedia during 2017.
References
[edit]- 1 2 Hughes, Jon; Thomas, Pat (11 October 2007). "Burying The Truth, the original Ecologist investigation into Monsanto and Brofiscin Quarry". The Ecologist. Retrieved 24 June 2024.
- 1 2 "How Michael Sheen helped to uncover a dark environmental secret". BBC News. 24 June 2024. Retrieved 24 June 2024.
- ↑ Vidal, John (12 February 2007). "Monsanto dumped toxic waste in UK". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 24 June 2024.
- ↑ "Open letter from Douglas Gowan". The Ecologist. 16 August 2007. Retrieved 24 June 2024.
- ↑ "Buried - The Last Witness - The Last Witness - 3. Discredit Gowan". BBC Sounds. Retrieved 24 June 2024.
- ↑ "Annual Raymond Williams Memorial Lecture". Open University in Wales. 10 November 2017. Retrieved 24 June 2024.
"[Transcipt of lecture]" (PDF). pp. 27–29. Retrieved 24 June 2024. - ↑ "Actor Michael Sheen slams Monsanto for causing pollution in Wales". www.gmwatch.org. 21 November 2017. Retrieved 24 June 2024.
- ↑ "BBC Radio 4 - Buried, The Last Witness". BBC. Retrieved 24 June 2024.
- ↑ Wray, Daniel Dylan (24 June 2024). "'Please come and see me because I'll be dead soon': how Michael Sheen got sucked into a forever chemicals exposé". The Guardian. Retrieved 24 June 2024.
- ↑ Davies, Hannah J. (24 December 2024). "The 20 best podcasts of 2024". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 28 January 2026.
- ↑ "UK documentary wins top prize at 2025 New York Radio Awards". RadioToday. 23 May 2025. Retrieved 28 January 2026.
- ↑ Ferrara, Danilo (27 September 2025). "Tutti i vincitori dei DIG Awards 2025". DIG Festival (in Italian). Retrieved 28 January 2026.
- ↑ "BBC Two - Buried with Michael Sheen". BBC. Retrieved 6 August 2026.
- ↑ "BBC announces new Factual series with Michael Sheen". www.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 28 January 2026.
- ↑ "Michael Sheen to front documentary on chemical contamination in South Wales | Royal Television Society". rts.org.uk. 26 January 2026. Retrieved 28 January 2026.
- ↑ Gowan, Douglas (1972). Slurry and Farm Waste Disposal. Farming Press. ISBN 978-0-85236-021-7.
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