BAFTA winning Lincoln graduate celebrates receiving hat trick of awards

University of Lincoln graduate, Lyndsay Rowan, BA (Hons) English, 2006, has been busy celebrating after receiving a hat trick of awards, including a BAFTA, for her ground breaking CBBC documentary ‘I am Leo’.

After graduating Lyndsay planned to become a journalist. She told us “After leaving university I volunteered at a community journalism project in my hometown which was focused on engaging people in their community.

“Through this I qualified for a Millennium Volunteers award and spent a month in London, all paid for by the scheme, at the London School of Journalism. My volunteering eventually turned into a paid job.”

Lyndsay was lucky enough to carry out internships at magazines including Now Magazine for IPC, Fly music magazine, and The Big Issue in the North. 

When an opportunity came up to work as a TV runner, she seized the chance, taking her career in a new direction, and began the journey of working her way up the ladder of factual programming.

She told us: “An English degree can provide a spring board to a world of opportunities, script writing and pitch writing are a big part of a TV career - as is having a good imagination and the grasp for telling a good story - so it's a perfect subject, in my eyes, for this career.”

In 2013, while working for Nine Lives Media, an independent TV production company in Manchester, Lyndsay was inspired by a story in the media about a transgender child and pitched an idea about making his story into a documentary. The programme ‘I Am Leo’ was commissioned and aired on CBBC as part of Anti-Bullying Week in November 2014.

The programme has been hugely successful and received a BAFTA in November 2015, a National Royal Television Society award in March 2016, and an EMMY in April 2016.

Lyndsay told us: “It's been fantastic to receive so much industry recognition for 'I Am Leo' but what has been most important for me is that we told this story and had the support of CBBC to do so.

“What a privilege it's been to provide a snapshot of a young person's life and at the same time develop the understanding of young people so that when they go to school they understand differences better and therefore help prevent bullying.”

Reflecting back on her time at Lincoln Lyndsay said: “At the end of my time at University I felt that I'd been really shaped as a person that I wanted to ask questions and it wasn't just about English, it was about life experience too. My time at Lincoln definitely made me approach the world differently.”

“I had some amazing tutors at Lincoln, and took advantage of the one to one session offered to everyone and I can’t speak highly enough of how these helped me in my degree”.

Lyndsay is currently finishing producing a Channel 4 Dispatches programme, and plans to work on more documentaries and directing. She is also really excited to be producing a short film drama called 'Ashes' with an award-winning and very talented writer.