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The life of Dylan
Thomas
who lived in Ceredigion at 'Majoda', New Quay in
1944 - 45 and 'Plas Gelli' near
Talsarn between 1941 and 1943. In May 2007 a film about Dylan
Thomas based on the period he lived in New Quay was being made in the
town. Click here for a page of photos of the filming.
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Dylan Thomas' roots lie deep in
south west Wales - Carmarthenshire and Cardiganshire - now
known as Ceredigion. These are counties to which he was irresistibly
drawn throughout his life. He lived in many places in his short
life including
London, Kent and Sussex, but returned to West Wales to produce his
most compelling and memorable works - most notably Ceredigion
where his various stays in New Quay and Talsarn were among
the most productive of his writing career. |
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Thomas is remembered by most
for his final play 'Under Milk Wood'. Started in New Quay and
partially written at Southleigh near Oxford, then finally completed in
New York minutes before its first public performance, 'Under Milk Wood' has stimulated a
long-running debate
as to which town is the model for 'Llareggub'. Local Author
David Thomas notes that many of the characters (from New
Quay) were written in long before Dylan Thomas ever
visited Laugharne. He has clearly established a strong case
for New Quay being the model for 'Llareggub' while the name
'Under Milk Wood' is probably taken from the farm
called 'Wernllaeth' where Dylan was taken by his good
friend, the Aberaeron vet Tommy Herbert. Dylan and
Caitlin's daughter Aeronwy was named after the river
Aeron which flows through the Aeron valley to Aberaeron ,
and about which Dylan said was: 'the most precious place in
the world'.
Thomas' Grandfather was a guard
'Thomas the Guard' on the Great Western Railways and lived in Johnstown, on the edge of Carmarthen.
His Father, David John Thomas, was educated at Aberystwyth University
where he gained a first in English after winning a scholarship in1895. He later became a senior
English Master at Swansea Grammar School where he is remembered as
being strict and blessed with a deep and sonorous speaking voice.
D. J. Thomas wanted to be a poet, and felt that teaching was very
much a waste of his talents. In her book 'Caitlin', Dylan's wife
describes him as : '..the most unhappy man I have ever met and it
showed in his face. He was unhappy with his life. It was exactly
the kind of life that he had hoped not to have, and by the end he
could feel himself sinking back into the very existence he had
sought to escape'. Dylan's Mother was Florence Hannah Williams - born on the
Llanstephan peninsula just across the water from Laugharne where
her son and his wife were to live later.
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born on October 27, 1914, in the upstairs front bedroom of his parents
newly built house at 5 Cwmdonkin Drive, Swansea. Behind the
house ran an alley and across the road was Cwmdonkin Park.
The name Dylan is taken from the
"Mabinogion", a collection of mediaeval
Welsh stories. His middle name Marlais
is the name of a stream near the birthplace of his great
uncle, the Preacher and Bard Gwylim Marles Thomas. The Rev Thomas ministered to the Unitarian
Chapel at Llwyn Rhydowen near Llandyssul from
1860.
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Dylan is
said to have been inspired by the leafy glades and shady paths of
Cwmdonkin park. In his radio
broadcast ‘Reminiscences of Childhood’ he speaks about the
importance of the park and its significance in his early life. He
describes it as:....…"A
world within the world of the sea town… full of terrors and
treasures…a country just born and always changing….and that park
grew up with me….In that small, iron-railed universe of rockery,
gravel-path, playbank, bowling-green, bandstand reservoir,
chrysanthemum garden, …..in the grass one must keep off, I endured,
with pleasure, the first agonies of unrequited love, the first slow
boiling in the belly of a bad poem, the strutting and raven-locked
self-dramatization of what, at that time seemed incurable
adolescence." |
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He also
wrote, 'The Hunchback in the Park' about a character observed there in
his youth. Two of the seven verses are below. The
Hunchback in the park
A solitary mister
Propped between trees and water
From the opening of the garden lock
Until the Sunday sombre bell at dark |
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Eating
bread from a newspaper
Drinking water from the chained cup
That the children filled with gravel
In the fountain basin where I sailed my ship
Slept at night in a dog kennel
But nobody chained him up. The
fountain is still there in the park (left). But the chained tin
drinking cup is now long gone. |
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Thomas'
summer holidays as a child were at the Carmarthenshire
dairy farm of his mother's sister, Ann Jones, and her husband, Jim
at Llangain. The
Farm 'Fern Hill' - see photo on right - was the subject of the poem of the same
name. Without doubt these were pleasant times, for as he
writes:
'And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
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Dylan attended a private school at 22 Mirador
Crescent, in the Uplands area of Swansea where he was taught
by a Mrs. Hole. He describes the experience as "the lonely schoolroom where only the sometimes tearful wicked sat over undone sums or to repent a little
crime". At the Swansea Grammar school, which he attended from
1925-1931, Thomas studied little other than English. He left the school at
the age of sixteen and found a job on the staff of the South Wales
Daily Post where he was a proof reader for more than a year before
becoming a junior reporter. |
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Unfortunately, he found the many pubs
of Swansea much more to his liking than work and here, in the
Uplands Tavern and other pubs, he developed
his love of alcohol that was ultimately to prematurely end his
life. Of beer, he wrote: ……"I
liked the taste of beer, its live white lather, its
brass-bright depths, the sudden world through the wet brown
walls of the glass, the tilted rush to the lips and the slow
swallowing down to the lapping belly, the salt on the
tongue, the foam at the corners."
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His work as a reporter in
Swansea was
short lived. In December 1932, he left the paper and joined an
amateur dramatic group, Swansea's Little Theatre. He
also joined a local writers' circle and began to write
poetry seriously. He had a number of poems published between 1932
and 1933 in the 'Poets Corner' of the London Sunday Referee. His
first poem to be published outside Wales however, was "And
death shall have no Dominion" in
the New English Weekly.
In 1933, Thomas went
to London for the first time and stayed with his sister
Nancy. He published "That Sanity be kept" in the
Sunday Referee. This was read by Pamela Hansford Johnson,
another budding poet who contacted Thomas, so beginning their
platonic relationship. In February
1934, on his second visit to the capital, he stayed with her. In
December of that same year, his first book '18 Poems' was
published. Throughout his stay in London, Thomas continued his
drinking. He wrote in 1936 "When I do come to town,
bang go my plans in a horrid alcoholic explosion that scatters all
my good intentions like bits of limbs and clothes over the
doorsteps and into the saloon bars of the tawdriest pubs in
London". In July,1936 he also published the collection '25 Poems'.
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For a while he lived in a basement flat at 54 Delancey Street in London. There was a caravan
at the end of the garden there and it was here that he went
to seek creativity. Thomas liked to get away from others to
write. The London caravan was Thomas' precursor to the
'Apple House' at Llanina Mansion near New Quay, the caravan
at Southleigh, Oxfordshire and finally
the writing shed near the 'Boathouse' at Laugharne. |
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'Wheatsheaf'
pub in Charlotte Street in April 1936, where Thomas met his wife to be, the
dancer Caitlin Macnamara. For both Dylan and Caitlin, their
meeting in the 'Wheatsheaf' was love at first sight. Later
that day, they booked into the Eiffel Tower Hotel where
Caitlin rather cheekily charged the room to the painter
Augustus John for whom she was both model and occasional
lover - after he had forced himself upon her following a modeling
session. Dylan and Caitlin continued drinking by day and
returning to the Hotel for five or six nights - apparently
without eating! |
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During their
first year, Dylan and Caitlin were sometimes together and
sometimes apart. It was while visiting friends in Cornwall that
they decided to get married. They stayed in Wyn Henderson's
cottage at Polgigga and in Mousehole. They married on 11th, July 1937 at Penzance Registry
Office having postponed the wedding twice as they had drunk the
money put aside for that purpose. Thomas
wrote that they were: `with no money, no prospect of
money, no attendant friends or relatives, and in complete
happiness. After a honeymoon at the 'Lobster Pot', Wyn
Henderson's restaurant in Mousehole, they rented a studio from the
painter Max Chapman at Newlyn. The Ship
Inn (left) at Mousehole in Cornwall was a favourite watering hole for
Dylan Thomas when he stayed there in 1937. There is still a corner of
the bar called 'Dylan's Corner'.
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September 1937, Thomas and Caitlin stayed with Dylan's parents in
Bishopston, Swansea - they had moved from Cwmdonkin Drive after
his Father's retirement from teaching at Swansea Grammar
School to a smaller house. This was Caitlin's first meeting with his
family. Later, in the winter of 1937 - 38, they lived with
Caitlin's Mother at the family home 'Blashford' near
Ringwood in Hampshire. They are shown here at
'Blashford'. |
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In April
1938, Dylan and Caitlin visited the writer Richard
Hughes who lived at Castle House in Laugharne and who
was enjoying success with his book, 'High wind in
Jamaica'. Here Hughes allowed Dylan to write in the
gazebo topping the ramparts of Laugharne Castle next to his house
(photo on left).
Soon afterwards , they found a place of their
own nearby.
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| 'Eros' was a small two bedroom fisherman's cottage
with no bathroom and an outside toilet on Gosport Street (photo on
right). Dylan
and Caitlin disliked the cottage intensely. 'Eros' was not only small
but primitive, so they soon moved to a larger house, 'Sea View'
just behind the castle at Laugharne where they lived from 1938 to
1941, and where Thomas wrote 'The Map of Love' and 'A Saint
about to fall'. |
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When Dylan
and Caitlin lived there, 'Sea View' was whitewashed and very
much standing alone. When this photo was taken (June 2007) it
was in dire need of renovation and was up for sale by auction. On January 30th, 1939,
their son Llewellyn Edouard Thomas was born. At Sea View, where
they paid seven shillings and sixpence a week in rent,
their landlord was Tudor Williams, brother of the
landlord of Brown's Hotel, where Dylan spent much of his
time. |
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| Dylan and Caitlin enjoyed happy times at 'Sea
View' and as war approached Thomas demonstrated his concern
at the possibility of losing his home in a letter to his
Father: ‘These are awful days and we are very worried.
It is terrible to have built, out of nothing, a complete
happiness – from no money, no possessions, no material
hopes, a way of living and then see it ruined through no
fault of one's own.’ In August ,1939, 'The Map of
Love' was published by J. M. Dent.
Right: Brown's
Hotel in Laugharne was Thomas' favourite pub in the town. It has
recently been purchased by 'Men Behaving Badly star Neil
Morrisey'.
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Eventually, pressure
from various creditors caused Thomas and Caitlin to
leave Laugharne and to stay in Caitlin's family home at
Blashford. They returned to Sea View for a short time in
1940 when Thomas gained exemption from active service at
Llandeilo, the Army doctors diagnosing him as an
acute asthmatic - this after Thomas had consumed a large
quantity of beer and spirits the previous evening in
Brown's hotel!
In the summer of
1940, the family stayed at 'The Maltings' at Marshfield
in Gloucestershire, with John Davenport.
In 1941,
Thomas and Caitlin moved to Plas Gelli at
Talsarn in Cardiganshire, along with Vera Phillips
(later Killick), her Sister and her Mother, Margaret
Phillips. At this time he also kept a studio flat in
Manresa Road, London as he was intermittently working on
wartime propaganda films. The couple left their son
Llewelyn with Caitlin's Mother at Blashford where he
stayed until 1949. Their second child, a daughter named Aeronwy
(Aeron) Bryn Thomas was born in March 1942. During his time in
London, Thomas took some part in more than a hundred BBC
radio programmes. While at Plas Gelli, Dylan Thomas
would stay from time to time at the Castle Hotel at
Lampeter where he knew the landlord Edward Evans.
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Dylan
Thomas moved to New Quay in September 1944, eager
to escape from both the war and from London. After
staying for a while in Bosham in Sussex and then
at Beaconsfield with his friend Donald Taylor, he
moved to the little bungalow called 'Majoda' just
along the coast road which branches off the
B4342 opposite the Cambrian Hotel.
In May 2007
'Majoda' was re-created in its original form as a film set in
the field beside the existing house - see photo on left (
courtesy of Roger Bryan of Plas Llanina ). |
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He
rented 'Majoda' for just one pound a week,
describing it as 'this wood and asbestos pagoda',
and 'a shack at the edge of the cliff, where
my children hop like fleas in a box.' The
house was draughty and cold, but had a wonderful
view across New Quay Bay (view at top of page) to the town
'cliff-perched' across the water. At
Majoda he found creative inspiration after a dry period.
In New
Quay
too he found characters who would later be immortalised
in 'Under Milk Wood'.
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to New Quay his wife Caitlin, his newly born daughter, Aeronwy and his son,
Llewelyn, who had previously been living with
Caitlin's mother in Ringwood in Hampshire. From
Majoda, Thomas could walk along Brongwyn Lane (now
partly lost to the sea) into New Quay
where his favourite pub was the Black Lion
run by his friend 'Jack Pat' and where Dylan
Thomas memorabilia can still be seen in 'Dylan's Restaurant'. |
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He
also wrote the radio scripts 'Quite early one
morning' and 'Memories of Christmas' here - the
former apparently after an early morning walk
through the town and along the cliff path where he
would have seen this view of New Quay. Other
works completed during his time in New Quay were
the poems, 'Vision and Prayer', 'Holy Spring',
'Poem in October', 'Fern Hill', and 'a Refusal to
Mourn the Death by Fire of A Child in London'. |
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The Thomas'
nearest neighbours at the time were William and Vera
Killick who lived at a house called 'Ffynnon Feddyg' a
hundred yards from 'Majoda'. Vera was formerly Vera
Williams, a close neighbour of Thomas when he was at
school in Swansea and with whom Dylan and Caitlin had
previously stayed at Talsarn. This year, a film
about Thomas' life called 'The best times of our lives'
will be filmed in several places in West Wales -
including New Quay where the incident with Killick will
be featured - click here for
photos of the shooting of the film.
In
March, 1945, in the Black Lion at New Quay, Killick was
rude to a Russian Secretary who had been sent by Donald
Taylor at Gryphon Films to help Dylan. A scuffle ensued
and Dylan and other men present threw Killick out of the
pub. Killick continued drinking at another pub and
later that night after returning home, took a machine gun and a hand grenade and repeatedly
fired at 'Majoda' while the Thomases were still
inside. At the Lampeter Assizes in June, the commando
Captain Killick was cleared of attempted murder
and returned to duties. This story was featured in
the Sunday scandal sheets and soon thereafter Dylan and
Caitlin Thomas and their children left New Quay.
Before
moving to Majoda, Thomas was familiar with the New Quay area and had visited a number of times earlier. During
the 1930s Dylan would visit his Aunt and Cousin in New
Quay. His great Uncle Gwilym Marles was a local
minister and a well known poet.
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he stayed temporarily between New Quay and Cei Bach
at Plas Llanina - also known as the Llanina
Mansion, then owned by Lord Howard de Walden, a
patron of the arts.
There is more information about Plas
Llanina on the Llanarth History page HERE.
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De Walden gave Thomas fifty
pounds and allowed him to write in the 'Apple
House' at the bottom of the garden.
De
Walden had been introduced to Thomas by Caitlin's
former lover, the
painter Augustus John.
The Apple House
(left) at Llanina is now roofless although the walls remain virtually
intact. Its cool basement would have been used to store the apples
from the orchard in the walled garden at Plas Llanina. |
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The Author
David Thomas, in his recently published book 'Dylan
Thomas, A Farm, Two Mansions and a Bungalow', has put
together a convincing case that New Quay is the
inspiration of Thomas's Llareggub (read it backwards!).
Details of the 'Dylan
Thomas Trail' - take the visitor to a
number of locations identified as models for locales in
the fictional Llareggub. In 1947 the
family lived at South Leigh in Oxfordshire at 'The Manor
House' - bought for them by Margaret Taylor as well as
keeping a small flat at Wentworth Studios, Manresa Road
in London. Thomas went abroad for the first time to Italy where he
started to write a major ( never completed) work . The
first part, entitled `In Country Sleep´ was
completed in Italy. Two more parts were eventually completed,
but the fourth was never started. |
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though, remained Thomas' spiritual home and it was
to here he returned once again in
May 1948, where he and his family moved to the
Boathouse at Laugharne , Thomas' final home. The
Boathouse was purchased for Thomas by Mrs. Margaret
Taylor for £2,500 in April 1949 when she arranged
for Mains electricity to be installed. He
immediately rented a house 'The Pelican' -
now known as 'Pelican House' opposite 'Brown's Hotel' for his parents,
where they lived from 1949 to 1953. It was in this
house that his father died and where the funeral
was held. |
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Just as in the caravan in London, and in the
'Apple House' at Plas Llanina, New Quay, Dylan Thomas preferred to be away
on his own to write. At the Boathouse, the garage - elevated on props on the
steep hillside above the sea, became his 'writing shed'.
The photo on the
left shows the inside of the writing shed as left
by Dylan Thomas. |
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The Boat House is perched on the edge of the
hill above the estuary of the river Taf. From the house, there is a
panoramic view across the 'Heron priested shore' that undoubtedly was
a great inspiration as he writes in 'Poem in October':
....Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood
And the mussel pooled and the heron Priested shore
The morning beckon
With water praying and call of seagull and rook
And the knock of sailing boats on the net webbed wall....
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Thomas had for some
time wanted to emigrate to the United States and in 1949
was offered a lecture tour by John Malcolm Brinnin. This
was to be the beginning of the end for Thomas. He
described Manhattan as: "this Titanic dream
world, soaring Babylon, everything monstrously rich and
strange," and promptly found solace in its
bars.
Thomas' second trip
to the United States began on 20th January, 1952
when he boarded the 'Queen Mary' with Caitlin. However,
they argued loudly and publicly, returning with little
to show for their time abroad.
At the end of 1952,
Thomas' Father died - prompting the poem 'Do
Not Go Gentle into That Good Night'. Soon
afterwards, Thomas' sister Nancy also died. Various
audio recordings of Thomas reading his own work have
survived including 'Do not go gentle'. These
confirm the reports of his 'deep and sonorous' voice.
However, it is clear that his lengthy association with
broadcasters of the day and his early drama experiences,
influenced his tone, accent and delivery. There is no
trace of a local accent - or of any regional
accent in these recordings.
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Thomas arrived in New
York for his third tour on the 21st April, 1953 when he
was completing 'Under Milk Wood'. The World
Premiere of which was on May 3rd, 1953, in the
Fogg Museum at Harvard.
Thomas' debts were increasing and the Bailiffs
were threatening him. His health was also deteriorating
at this time. He was suffering blackouts regularly and
was advised by his Doctor to stop drinking. The only way
out of debt seemed to be another American lecture tour.
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Thomas' final tour of
America began on the 19th October 1953. Thomas was to
direct the rehearsals of 'Under Milk Wood' with a
full cast. Although he was not in good health, he was to
take the part of narrator again as he had on May 13th in New
York. On November 3rd he attended a party, but returned
early to his hotel. Unable to sleep, he left his room
for a drink - in his own words eighteen straight
whiskeys. The next morning he was taken to St. Vincent's
Hospital where he lapsed into a coma for five days,
dying on November 9th 1953. Caitlin notes in her book:
"Dylan had this rather odd view that all the best
poets died young and that he himself would never make
forty, and there were times when he almost seemed to
live his life by that"
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Dylan's
death however, was probably not only a result of
the over-consumption of alcohol. He is thought to have
had problems with blood sugar balance, he is known to
have not eaten properly for several days prior to this
death and the Doctor who treated him injected him on two
occasions with both cortisone and morphine. A tragic
combination of events brought a premature end to the life of one
of Wales' most celebrated writers and poets.
He was returned
to Wales and was buried in Laugharne.
©2003 Rod Attrill
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Links to more Dylan Thomas
information
Dylan,
New Quay and Under Milk Wood - A new website from David
Thomas
Fatal Neglect - Who killed Dylan Thomas? - A new book by
David N. Thomas explores events surrounding the death of Dylan
Thomas.
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