Laugharne: ‘The strangest town in Wales’!

 

Linking with last week’s blog where I wanted to showcase Mum’s writing, below are some memories and poetry written by Aeronwy Thomas about her time living in Laugharne.

 

Reading with dad

 

If I could catch my dad after his bath, he would read to me. Comfortably ensconced in a capacious armchair, on his lap, he would read me stories and rhyme of his choice. From my vantage point I could see the estuary through the slats of the balcony but shut out distractions to listen to Dad. Was it going to be Grimms’ Fairy Tales or the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe with all the children. Heaven, it was going to be Little Red Riding Hood. “Who would you like to be?” he asked. “You’re so good as the wolf,” I replied, “so you can play him and the woodchopper.” Of course, I was left with the title role, if Dad agreed. Soon we were in the wood with the nasty wolf hiding behind trees and the poor girl in her red cape visible to all. Dad made me read all the dialogue which I pretended was a little difficult for my reading skills. “I only know the easy words,” I lied. I made myself easy in the armchair, sitting on his lap as if I owned him.

Another session we read Hansel and Gretel and I was forced to run around looking for matches. “This is the place the children slept when they first ran away from their nasty family,” he said, pouring a mound of matches on the floor. I didn’t think they looked much like a leafy mound to serve as a bed but did not like to say so. He then made an outline with matches of the witches’ cottage made from sweets to tempt Hansel and Gretel. What about the cauldron or oven to cook them, I demanded. He placed his beer glass in the house, which didn’t convince me. ‘What about something smaller?” I asked. Finally, to my satisfaction, he poured out the dolly mixture he kept in his pocket into the sweet house and I fashioned an oven from a piece of plasticine. There followed a debate about who should play the witch and the less interesting characters of the children. In the end, Dad adopted a falsetto voice adding words that I knew were not on the page and made quite a convincing evil old lady. I might ask him to wear a hat from our dress-up box another time, I thought.

Dad could also make lots of other characters from fairytale and nursery rhyme come alive. There was the gruff Giant in Jack and the Beanstalk and the jumpy white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, read in staccato, neurotic voice. Aladdin had a similar voice to the witch one without the frightening tones. It was the best time of the week when Dad opened a book with me.

Always one to seize the moment, I would lurk outside the bathroom door where you could hear him try out different characters from Under Milk Wood such as Mrs Dai Bread One and Mrs Dai Bread Two. As the bath was newly installed thanks to a patron, both my parents spent a long time there topping up the hot water. We, the children, had to make do with the tin bath in front of the Aga. As he emerged, hot and steamy, I would pounce with my reading request, nipping into the bathroom to see whether his detective novel had fallen into the bath water or mainly fish out any sweets he might have left. I remember once Mother, who was impatient to get out for their every night pub session, walking in while we were reading from Struwwelpeter, waving a pair of scissors to cut Dad’s toenails. We were delighted with the timing and asked Mother to try and cut of his toes as well.

 

Later Than Laugharne

 

Herons, mussel pools, gulls and piper,

encircle our ‘house on stilts high among

beaks and palavers of birds’. Cormorants

scud and gulls glide in my memory.

The stones, washed by the tide, which I

would turn looking for blue and white,

or floral pieces of china for our crockery

houses…And the fish my mother would

catch and throw back into the swirling

waters of the estuary all around us …

I remember them well.

…And high tode covering our back garden

through a hole in the stone wall which

embraced our home. The tide carrying our

makeshift boats on its back, pieces of lumber,

an old zinc bath, and I can still recall

the envy I felt when they bought my brother

a boat called The Cuckoo…

The names come tumbling back –

…And I remember the hole in the wall was

called grandly by all, The Harbour.

…And who could forget sliding down the

mud banks at low tide into the rivulets

left by receding water, or running along

the cliffwalk and stirring up a din outside

the shed that was my father’s writing den.

The memories race back –

… And the thrill of peeping through

the keyhole (I was always the most naughty)

to see my father writing his poems about

gulls, hills and cormorants on estuaries

which he saw through his wide-vista window,

and he sat, bent, writing in crabbled letters,

pressing against the hard surface of the

kitchen table that was his desk …

We were poor those days –

Though I can’t remember being poor

in Laugharne, those balmy,

never-to-be-forgotten days,

green and golden …

 

Herons, gulls and pipers still encircle

our house on stilts,

and the cormorants still scud and glide

in my memory ……..

 

 

The Road Home

 

The way home is long

the cliffwalk lengthens

from home to seatown

and back again.

 

In dreams, I wander slowly

the heron still there

regal on one leg

surveying the estuary

 

and I stop to see

streamlets of water

snake

over the sand-blown banks.

 

Light-footed in recollection,

I tackle the slope

there’s something

worth running for

 

and come across the shed

painted royal blue

it hasn’t changed

in wayward memory.

 

And here I am today

labouring up the hill

looking for the familiar outline

through the trees

 

the grass green door

not the way it was

before

and through the porthole

 

I can see the branches

tapping the windows

my father there

working at the table

 

writing and muttering

watching the tides

his life on the turn

putting into poems

 

terns, gulls, killyduckers

flying over the bay

I look again with his eyes

Alight

 

the pages turn

before the last climb

to my home

along the pathway

 

down the steps

to the Boat House

which has not moved

in my absence.

 

It is a long road.

 

Aeronwy’s plaque in the Boathouse garden.  Her husband Trefor requested that we use her married name Ellis on the inscription.

 

 

 

Hannah Ellis – 3rd April 2017.

Hannah is a teacher, writer and consultant.  You can learn more about her by visiting the website – www.hannahellisconsultancy.com