Discover Dylan Thomas - Pembrokeshire
St Dogmaels
Where Dylan came on holiday
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He was extremely presentable and dishy, not at all the scruffy bohemian.
Tenby, Pembrokeshire
Dylan gave readings here
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Dylan made two visits to the beautiful Pembrokeshire seaside town of Tenby to give readings to the Tenby & District Arts Club. In 1949 he read the poetry of Auden, Yeats and Pound, as well as some of his own. On his second visit, on October 2nd 1953, he read from the recently completed Under Milk Wood, in what is probably the only public reading he made from his classic play in Wales. It was probably Dylan’s final engagement in Wales. He died the following month during his fourth trip to North America. The venue for his reading was the Salad Bowl Cafe on the Croft; the building no longer survives, but a blue plaque has been erected nearby to mark the historic event. Tenby Museum has a Dylan Thomas display, and has artworks on show by members of Dylan’s circle, Augustus John and Nina Hamnett.
Sorry not to have answered by return. I spoke, however, to the owner of the Salad Bowl on the telephone & we arranged a time for me to be picked up here: it’s very kind of everyone. No objection, of course, to Mr Houling’s playing the piano; I hope he doesn’t mind me, either. I look forward to coming to Tenby on Friday October 2nd. (Letter to G V Roberts of the Tenby Arts Club, September 1953)
St David’s
Dylan brought visitors here
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Bishop’s Palace
In July 1951, John Malcolm Brinnin, Director of the 92nd Street Y Poetry Center in New York, and his friend Bill Read, came to stay with Dylan and Caitlin in Laugharne. During their stay, the four, along with Laugharne local Billy Williams acting as chaffeur, visited St Davids. They visited the Bishop’s Castle and took photographs among the ruins.
We wandered in and out of huge galleries, took photographs on a greensward enclosed by great lichen-covered walls, and for a time almost succeeded in being merry when, as we took photographs, Dylan strutted like Mussolini, and Bill hung upside down from a battlement. The happiest result of our visit was a group portrait of Dylan, Caitlin, Bill, and Billy Williams.
(John Malcolm Brinnin – Dylan Thomas in America)
Pwllgwaelod
Dylan visited the Sailor’s Safety Inn
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Old Sailors (formerly Sailors Safety)
In July 1951, John Malcolm Brinnin, Director of the 92nd Street Y Poetry Center in New York, and his friend Bill Read, came to stay with Dylan and Caitlin in Laugharne. During their stay, the four, along with Laugharne local Billy Williams acting as chaffeur, visited the Sailors Safety Inn (now called the Old Sailors) at Pwllgwaelod for a lobster dinner.
There, just a few yards from the sea, was a somewhat ramshackle clapboard inn snugly sequestered between cliffs. We were the only patrons. The flustered proprietress, who obviously expected no one on this miserable evening, greeted us with notably more anxiety than pleasure. The promise of a lobster dinner which Dylan had used in goading us onwards was, it turned out, rather untenable
(John Malcolm Brinnin – Dylan Thomas in America)
Print on the wall of the Old Sailors
Fishguard
Dylan visited in 1936
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In July 1951 he visited the town with John Malcolm Brinnin.
In 1972 the film version of Under Milk Wood, directed by Andrew Sinclair, was largely shot on location in Lower Fishguard.
Richard Burton in Under Milk Wood
Solva
Location for 2014 Under Milk Wood
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Although it’s not known whether Dylan ever visited Solva, the harbour village was the location for the outdoor scenes in the 2014 film version of Under Milk Wood, directed by Kevin Allen.
What was harder to remember was what birds sounded like and said in Gower; what sort of a sound and a shape was Carmarthen Bay; how did the morning come in through the windows of Solva; what silence when night fell in the Aeron Valley.
From the broadcast Living in Wales (1949)
Charlotte Church in a scene from Under Milk Wood
Shot on location in Solva