It is spring, moonless night in the small
town, starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets
silent and the hunched, courters'-and-rabbits'
wood limping invisible down to the sloeblack,
slow, black, crowblack, fishingboatbobbing
sea. The houses are blind as moles (though
moles see fine to-night in the snouting,
velvet dingles) or blind as Captain Cat there
in the muffled middle by the pump and the
town clock, the shops in mourning, the Welfare
Hall in widows' weeds. And all the people
of the lulled and dumbfound town are sleeping
now.
opening words from Under Milkwood by Dylan Thomas
"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."
Join us every Thursday evening at 6.30 outside The No Sign Wine Bar on Wind Street when we visit for pubs used by Dylan Thomas. Hear about his connections and the wonderful history of each pub. You'll even have time for drink, whether beer or something none alcoholic.
Come on this walking tour that takes you back into an age gone by. Between the two world wars before plasma screens and washing machines in every home: when a family car or phone was a luxury; when locking the doors at home was unusual: when the pub was the social hub.
It is often commented that Thomas was indulged like a child and he was, in fact, still a teenager when he published many of the poems he would become famous for: “And death shall have no dominion" “Before I Knocked” and “The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower". "And death shall have no dominion", appeared in the New English Weekly in May 1933[4]and further work appeared in The Listener in 1934 catching the attention of two of the most senior poets of the day T. S. Eliot and Stephen Spender. His highly acclaimed first poetry volume, 18 Poems, was published on 18 December 1934, and went on to win a contest run by The Sunday Referee, netting him new admirers from the London poetry world, including Edith Sitwell. The anthology was published by Fortune Press, which did not pay its writers and expected them to buy a certain number of copies themselves. A similar arrangement would later be used by a number of other new authors, including Philip Larkin.
His passionate musical lyricism caused a sensation in these years of desiccated Modernism; the critic Desmond Hawkins said it was “the sort of bomb that bursts no more than once in three years”. In all, he wrote half of his poems while living at 5 Cwmdonkin Drive before he moved to London. It was also the time that Thomas's reputation for heavy drinking developed.
But was he a regular big drinker or not? Come and listen to my theory on the Dylan Thomas Literary Pub Crawl. Every Thursday from 5th July when we follow in his footsteps and visit pubs he frequented. Pubs that are steeped in history. Pubs that will give you a Welsh welcome. Pubs where you may even have a chance to read some of the Great Man's words, and cetainly listen to some.
Please call 07976 364681 with any query.
