A RISING young star is to take to the small screen playing one of the Gwent's famous sons.

Dafydd Price, from Wern Gifford, near Abergavenny, will be starring in BBC documentary Border Crossing which charts the life of Pandy-born Cambridge University don and author Raymond Williams.

The seven-year-old Llanvihangel Crucorney pupil was chosen by filmmakers who were at the school researching Williams' life.

Head teacher Dorothy Thomas said: "Raymond Williams attended the old Pandy school so the filmmakers were initially here gathering information about him.

"Then they came back and asked if we had a child suitable to play Williams as a young boy.

"They said they wanted someone with dark hair and an old-fashioned look about them.

"Dafydd has got quite a wicked sense of humour and seemed to take to the acting very well."

Mum, Valerie Price, said: "Dafydd absolutely loved taking part.

"He is a very outgoing boy, he has always liked taking part in school plays and dressing up in costumes."

Born in Pandy in 1921, Williams has been credited as the man who "almost single-handedly launched the idea of culture".

After winning a scholarship to Cambridge he served as an officer with the Anti Tank Corp during the Allied liberation of France before returning to academia to write his most influential work Culture and Society.

* Border Crossing can be seen tonight on BBC Four at 9pm.