The poet and writer
Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas - [Dylan Thomas.com]
""Under Milk Wood" is billed as "a play for voices" and was in its earlier stages entitled *Llareggub, a Piece for Radio Perhaps. The first section was performed at the YMHA in New York City in 1953, with Thomas himself reading the parts of First Voice and the Reverend Eli Jenkins. My senior year of high school, we performed the same section (directed by Clelia Peters, wherever she is now) as a performance piece. I was First Voice. The voices sat on stools in the four corners of the stage and the others did expressive dance stuff. It was my theatrical debut, and it was fabulous. My point being that this is exceedingly versatile. Right. Enjoy."
Dylan Thomas FamilyConnection
On December 17, 1987 while I was teaching a grade 9 social studies class at Templeton high school I received a frantic call from my youngest daughter, Heather. She was in labor and was in a panic about what to do. I told her to telephone her older sister, Joanne at her work and ask for help. Joanne drove over to our apartment, picked up Heather and started driving towards Children’s Hospital. On the way down Fraser Street the baby decided to come premature enough to be born on my birthday. As a result, my 1st born grandchild was born in a Jeep Cherokee on Fraser Street.
Heather decided to name him after her favorite poet, Dylan Thomas. From then on Dylan Thomas has meant a great deal to not only Dylan but for the rest of the family. This page in my website was created in recognition of our connection to Dylan Thomas.
In 1988 while visiting relatives in Newport Wales I was able to travel to Laugharne, South Wales where I was able to see the “Boathouse” and the “Bicycle Shed” where he lived and wrote his poetry. His wife, Kaitlyn would lock him into the bicycle shed until he had written poetry for an hour. Then he would be allowed out. He immediately went to the Brown Hotel where he drank in the pub for the rest of the day. The bicycle shed is where he wrote “Under Milk Wood Tree”, his best-known work.
Dylan Thomas and Dylan Watkins will always remain a memorable part of my life.
Heather decided to name him after her favorite poet, Dylan Thomas. From then on Dylan Thomas has meant a great deal to not only Dylan but for the rest of the family. This page in my website was created in recognition of our connection to Dylan Thomas.
In 1988 while visiting relatives in Newport Wales I was able to travel to Laugharne, South Wales where I was able to see the “Boathouse” and the “Bicycle Shed” where he lived and wrote his poetry. His wife, Kaitlyn would lock him into the bicycle shed until he had written poetry for an hour. Then he would be allowed out. He immediately went to the Brown Hotel where he drank in the pub for the rest of the day. The bicycle shed is where he wrote “Under Milk Wood Tree”, his best-known work.
Dylan Thomas and Dylan Watkins will always remain a memorable part of my life.
Dylan Thomas’ Boathouse, Laugharne
Dylan Thomas lived here from 1949 to 1953, the last four years of his life. During that time he wrote many of his most important works, including the radio play Under Milk Wood and the iconic poem, Do Not Go Gentle, written for his dying father. It was from here that Thomas traveled, in 1953, to the USA on his fourth tour. There he was taken ill and died in a New York hospital. He was 39 years old.
The house’s construction date isn't known, but in 1834 it was leased to a local family called the Scourfields by the town corporation. Since then it was made into two dwellings before being converted back into a single dwelling. It was variously a private house and a holiday home before Margaret Taylor, one of Thomas’ patrons, leased it for the use of his family in 1949.
Dylan Thomas was born in Swansea and had relatives in Carmarthenshire. He lived in two other places in Laugharne before settling in the Boathouse with his wife Caitlin and their three children. The garage on the top path was adapted for Thomas to use as a writing shed, and his career saw a renaissance during his time here.
Today the house is a museum devoted to the poet. It is still owned by the corporation but leased to and managed by Carmarthenshire County Council.
Richard Burton reads Dylan Thomas - from 'Under Milk Wood':
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgMRD84MTQY
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xfpf66_dylan-thomas-a-child-s-christmas-in-wales_creationhttp://www.dailymotion.com/video/xfpf66_dylan-thomas-a-child-s-christmas-in-wales_creation |
Household shopping in the 1920s/1930s
When the family happened to be at home all together, we would crowd into the little kitchen. My mother would be glad to get us out into the garden or the shed. I spent a lot of time in the shed. My father had made it into a workshop. It had a water tap inside, which he had fixed up himself. It was really a shed/washhouse. He had built a coal-fired boiler in one corner. It was my job to fill it ready for wash-days and bath-days. It held six big buckets of water, about 20 gallons. A fire would be lit under the boiler (y paer) and when it was bubbling away the shed would be as cosy as any room, so that even in the winter we could have our baths out there.
The groceries were delivered from the Co-op once a week, in a large cart pulled by a very big horse. Tom the Co-op was the carrier. A typical order would be eight pounds of sugar, four pounds of butter, four pounds of cheese, two pounds of tea, four pounds of bacon, half a pound of yeast, dried fruit and condensed milk. These were the bare essentials. Flour and potatoes came as they were needed, by the hundredweight sack, and meat from the butcher’s shop around the corner. Whatever other food was needed was shopped for in the normal way.
I never knew what it was to buy a loaf of bread from a shop. It was all baked in the oven at home. Huge loafs weighing four pounds. Salt came in 14 pound blocks, which would be about 8 inches x 8 inches x 20 inches long. It would be my job to cut it into small pieces, about 1 inch square. If we wanted swanky table salt I would rub two pieces together so that it could be put into a salt cellar, which would normally be cut glass. Very posh.
Sugar came in 4 pound blue bags. It would be weighed in the shop by one of the assistants, using a big scoop, out of a huge bag. We used to call the cheese American cheese. The only other cheese I knew was Caerphilly, but that was for special occasions, like when the chapel minister called, or for a funeral. Soap came in long bars, which were cut up into handy pieces.
I can even remember our Co-op membership numbers. My mother’s was 339, my sister’s 333 and ours was 111. We got 1/6d dividend for every pound we spent there, and every six months it would be entered into our dividend book. Then we would buy a piece of furniture or some bed-clothes, and that’s how we built up a stock of items we needed to build a home.
If any of the family needed a new suit we would go to the Co-op or Griff H Davies to be measured, and within a week it would be ready, sooner if it was a black or navy blue suit for a funeral. The Co-op would send the measurements to their tailors in Swansea. Griff H Davies would have it made up by a local tailor working at his own home. Shoes or boots would be purchased from Dai Rees, Siop Yscydian – Dai Rees, the shoe shop, or Dan Cash, so-called because you paid him as you purchased the shoes.
Dai Rees sent us a bill each quarter, as did Griff H Davies and also Mr Davies, the ironmonger, who had a shop on the Cross. That is where we bought what today would be called DIY materials. As a family we did many things ourselves. Leather to repair shoes and hob nails to make the soles last longer. Paint would be mixed to the colour you desired. Brushes, carpets – you name it, they had it or could get it in a day or two.
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The groceries were delivered from the Co-op once a week, in a large cart pulled by a very big horse. Tom the Co-op was the carrier. A typical order would be eight pounds of sugar, four pounds of butter, four pounds of cheese, two pounds of tea, four pounds of bacon, half a pound of yeast, dried fruit and condensed milk. These were the bare essentials. Flour and potatoes came as they were needed, by the hundredweight sack, and meat from the butcher’s shop around the corner. Whatever other food was needed was shopped for in the normal way.
I never knew what it was to buy a loaf of bread from a shop. It was all baked in the oven at home. Huge loafs weighing four pounds. Salt came in 14 pound blocks, which would be about 8 inches x 8 inches x 20 inches long. It would be my job to cut it into small pieces, about 1 inch square. If we wanted swanky table salt I would rub two pieces together so that it could be put into a salt cellar, which would normally be cut glass. Very posh.
Sugar came in 4 pound blue bags. It would be weighed in the shop by one of the assistants, using a big scoop, out of a huge bag. We used to call the cheese American cheese. The only other cheese I knew was Caerphilly, but that was for special occasions, like when the chapel minister called, or for a funeral. Soap came in long bars, which were cut up into handy pieces.
I can even remember our Co-op membership numbers. My mother’s was 339, my sister’s 333 and ours was 111. We got 1/6d dividend for every pound we spent there, and every six months it would be entered into our dividend book. Then we would buy a piece of furniture or some bed-clothes, and that’s how we built up a stock of items we needed to build a home.
If any of the family needed a new suit we would go to the Co-op or Griff H Davies to be measured, and within a week it would be ready, sooner if it was a black or navy blue suit for a funeral. The Co-op would send the measurements to their tailors in Swansea. Griff H Davies would have it made up by a local tailor working at his own home. Shoes or boots would be purchased from Dai Rees, Siop Yscydian – Dai Rees, the shoe shop, or Dan Cash, so-called because you paid him as you purchased the shoes.
Dai Rees sent us a bill each quarter, as did Griff H Davies and also Mr Davies, the ironmonger, who had a shop on the Cross. That is where we bought what today would be called DIY materials. As a family we did many things ourselves. Leather to repair shoes and hob nails to make the soles last longer. Paint would be mixed to the colour you desired. Brushes, carpets – you name it, they had it or could get it in a day or two.
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