Dylan Thomas: A New Life

by Andrew Lycett

  The birth of a child encouraged her to step up her battle with the Trust for more funds. In 1964 she received £5,500 as her half share of the trust’s post-tax income, as well as additional personal royalties from the successful Broadway play, Dylan, by Sidney Michaels, which was based partly on her book and partly on Brinnin’s. Even so, she wanted more money to fund a expensive lifestyle that ran to an apartment in Rome. In March 1966, with the help of the trustees, she sued for the return of the original manuscript of Under Milk Wood, which Douglas Cleverdon had sold claiming it to be his. It proved an expensive gamble when she lost and was forced to pay costs. Two months later she turned her fire on the trustees, suing them for withholding £9,000 due from the sale of five of Dylan’s letters to an American magazine. Wynford Vaughan-Thomas who had taken over as trustee from a disgruntled Dan Jones, remonstrated with Caitlin that over the previous decade she and her family had received ‘the best part of a quarter of a million pounds’ or ‘a yearly income greater than that paid to the Prime Minister’.

  Stuart Thomas, the administrator of the trust, might have been more emollient. He did well out of the connection, charging generous expenses to the trust’s account. At one time he threatened to make a mockery of the set-up by arranging for his friend Kingsley Amis to become a trustee in place of Vaughan-Thomas who died in 1987. Amis could not abide Dylan either as a man or as a poet, though, occasionally, as when he opposed the ‘novelisation’ of Under Milk Wood, he brought his experience as a writer to the management of Dylan’s literary affairs. Stuart Thomas, to give him his due, played a difficult hand with some skill. Despite Caitlin’s furies, he performed his duty in keeping the trust not only intact but financially buoyant.

  Gradually, around 1970, Caitlin began to conquer her alcoholism and lived the last two decades of her life sober and lucid, if still uncompromising. When, after several efforts, she reworked her memoirs, she pointed unsentimentally to alcohol as the bane of her life. (The book, which was both clear and moving, was published posthumously in 1997 as Double Drink Story.) Even as the demons began to disappear, she remained inconsistent to the last, making it known before she died in 1994 that, for all her devotion to her Italian family, she wanted to be buried beside her husband in the same Laugharne churchyard from which she had once wanted him moved.

  Her passing did not make life any easier for the trust, for her son Francesco went to court, claiming that, as her heir, he was due her half-share in her husband’s estate. Caitlin had discussed this with her other children, but they were understandably unenthusiastic, or they might have allowed the trust to be broken. As it was, the estate withstood Francesco Fazio’s repeated legal assaults and his case was dismissed from the High Court in London in July 2002.

  Strangely Dylan’s mother never benefited from the trust. Although helped by the actor Emlyn Williams who devised a successful one-man show about her son, she lived partially on national assistance until her death in the Boat House in August 1958. Of Dylan’s children, Llewelyn went to Harvard and enjoyed a successful career in advertising, before dropping out and seeking anonymity. Keeping matters in the family, he married Rhiannon, Stuart Thomas’s step-daughter, but later divorced. He died of cancer in 2000 in the Devon town of Dawlish where he liked to be known as Tom Llewelyn. His and Rhiannon’s Australian daughter Jemima was able to inherit his share in Dylan’s estate. Colm, like his brother, spent time in Australia, before settling in Italy. Aeronwy trained as a nurse before joining her mother in Italy. After marrying a Welshman, Trefor Ellis in 1973, she moved to New Malden, Surrey, where, as a member of her local church, she enjoys a suburban existence very different from her mother’s. With charm and tenacity, she acts as the public face of the Dylan Thomas family.

  As for others in the story, Liz Reitell maintained a feisty dignity, even if, latterly, she tended to overemphasise the importance of her relationship with Dylan, calling it the ‘greatest love experience’ of her life. This was after she had married the architect Herb Hannum, whom she had introduced to Dylan, and worked in New York for Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe. Then, abandoning the arts for the environment, her passion for wilderness took her to Montana where she married for a fourth time before dying in February 2001. Adopting a more conventional course, Pearl Kazin married the distinguished Harvard sociologist Daniel Bell in 1960, had a son, and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she shows little sign of wanting to revisit her affair with Dylan. Her last known publication was an essay on her former Harvard tutor F. O. Mathiessen in The American Scholar.

  Despite turbulence, Dylan’s literary reputation remains intact half a century after his death. Inevitably, the interest shown in his work in the wake of his dramatic demise was followed by a period of reassessment. In England he came under attack from a critical school influenced by the Movement poets and given intellectual fire-power by the Cambridge don F. R. Leavis. Leading the charge was David Holbrook whose 1962 book Llareggub Revisited portrayed Dylan as infantile and his poetry largely meaningless. Meanwhile, at a time of national resurgence in Wales, Dylan, unlike his near name-sake R. S. Thomas, was dismissed for ignoring the true matter of his home country.

  That did not prevent him taking his place in Poets’ Corner in London’s Westminster Abbey in 1982 nor having an expensive part-European Community funded Centre named after him in Swansea in 1995. As the epitome of the romantic poet, he remained popular, even if many of his audience knew little more than Under Milk Wood and a dozen of his poems. To the horror of a few die-hard nationalists, he became, with the inexorable logic of the MTV generation, a symbol of modern Welsh culture. When the European Union held a competition for an essay about Wales, Welsh-born Commissioner Neil Kinnock presented the only prize with the requisite community-wide appeal – a first edition of Under Milk Wood. Dylan would have loved both the irony and the recognition.

  NOTES

  For the sake of space, I have used certain abbreviations. These relate to people – as in DT (Dylan Thomas), PHJ (Pamela Hansford Johnson), DJ (Daniel Jones), CT (Caitlan Thomas), KR (Keidrych Rhys), JL (James Laughlin), VW (Vernon Watkins), OW (Oscar Williams), DH (David Higham), MT (Margaret Taylor), JBM (John Malcolm Brinnin).

  Or to institutions – SGS (Swansea Grammar School), SWEP (South Wales Evening Post), HoW (Herald of Wales), SWWG (Swansea and West Wales Guardian).

  Or to libraries – NLW (National Library of Wales), HRC (Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin). Some universities and libraries are noted in an abbreviated form e.g. Indiana (University of Indiana at Bloomington) or Berg (the Berg collection at the New York Public Library).

  And even to books – MFDT (My Friend Dylan Thomas by Daniel Jones).

  CE (Colin Edwards) refers usually to interviews in his papers and tapes in the National Library of Wales.

  CL refers to the second or new edition of Dylan Thomas The Collected Letters edited by Paul Ferris and published in 2000. A number refers to the relevant page in this edition.

  KT refers to the PhD thesis and related research papers written by Kent Thompson and lodged in the archives of Swansea University Library.

  The number preceding each reference is the relevant page; subsequent entries on the same page have not been numbered.

  CHAPTER 1

  5 the family raised £350: I am grateful to Kevin Lane, present owner of 5 Cwmdonkin Drive for background information.

  6 the ‘quiet, retiring’ George: description by Harry Leyshon, CE.

  7 a Bible and hymn-book for the pulpit: Harry Leyshon, CE.

  11 Gwilym Marles who died three years later: for further information on the Rev William Thomas, see Gwilym Marlais: ‘Dylan Thomas’s illustrious forebear’ by John Edwards New Welsh Review winter 1999– 2000.

  11 one obituary: The Unitarian Herald, December 1879.

  11 ‘I have been pursued’ and ‘find for me a good brain doctor’: Gwilym Marles to the Rev RJ Jones, 7 May 1877 and 12 May 1879, NLW.

  12 Significantl
y, on 14 September 1892: see records of Johnstown primary school and of the National and Practising School, Carmarthen, in Carmarthen county record office.

  13 ‘You will see by the above the hours’: for details of pay and hours, see DB/6/48 and DB/6/51 in the papers of the Great Western Railway in Carmarthen county record office.

  13 the only extra-curricular field: details from letter from Thomas Parry, principal of University College, Aberystwyth, to Bill Read 18 December 1963, HRC.

  13 According to his future wife Florrie: interview with Ethel Ross Swansea College of Education Arts Festival magazine, 1966.

  14 Eighteen-year-old Florrie: she was actually in Swansea on day of census.

  CHAPTER 2

  20 box-like room: DT to PHJ, c. 3 July 1934, CL, 172.

  20 ‘A precocious child’: DT to PHJ, early Nov. 1933.

  20 ‘a world within the world of the sea-town’: ‘Reminiscences of Childhood’, BBC Home Service, 15 February 1943. Printed The Listener, 25 February 1943. Repeated (second version) Welsh Region, Children’s Hour, 21 March 1945.

  21 ‘from the robber’s den’: ‘Reminiscences of Childhood’ second version.

  21 Addie Drew specifically remembered: CE.

  21 ‘He used to climb the reservoir railings: ‘Return Journey’, BBC Home Service, 15 June 1947, with many subsequent repeats.

  21 ‘the majority of literature’: DT to Trevor Hughes, early January 1933, CL 27.

  22 a ‘mixture of genuine affection and amused contempt’: Haydn Taylor, unpublished memoir.

  23 Resident in the same establishment: Trevor Hughes, memoir, Buffalo.

  23 his nickname Le Soldat: mentioned Walford Davies reviewing James A. Davies, A Reference Companion to Dylan Thomas, NWR No 46, 1999, pp. 70– 75.

  24 ‘It’ll be just the same’: quoted Fitzgibbon, Dylan Thomas p. 41.

  25 ‘distant, terrible, sad music of the late piano lessons’: ‘Return Journey’.

  25 ‘my grave poem’: Evelyn Burman Jones in Dylan Thomas Remembered (tape produced by Dylan Thomas Society).

  26 ‘a big voice for a small boy’: Gwen James, CE.

  27 Mervyn’s home-life: The Levys came from Liverpool. Louis Levy was one of seven brothers – one of whom, Goodall (known as Goodie) was a jeweller and property developer who also married into the Rubenstein family. Harris Rubenstein, father of Goodie’s wife Selina, made his fortune from a chain of wallpaper shops. Dolly Levy was born Zeiler.

  27 no interest in the paintings and art books: KT.

  28 a competition: although she described it as a short story competition, the item was more likely to have been a poem – either his contribution to Boys Own Paper in February 1927 or the lines attributed to him in a competition in Everyman on 10 October 1929.

  29 ‘I did not care what the words said’: Poetic Manifesto Texas Quarterly, Winter 1961.

  30 ‘the Spinster’s Friend’: DT to PHJ, early November, 1933, CL 61.

  30 From an early age: Addie Drew and Doris Fulleylove, CE.

  30 I Like/My Bike: Tom Warner, CE.

  30 a ‘dinner wagon’: Fulleylove, CE.

  30 despatched the wrong material: another version told by Florrie to Colin Edwards is that she put them on the mantel-piece and accidently burnt them, CE.

  30 ‘My Party’ and ‘As eager captains’: HRC.

  CHAPTER 3

  33 ‘Sleep with your wife, sir?’: The Fight, but other sources, e.g. CE.

  33 ‘a hard time school-teaching’: Jones, MFDT, p. 11.

  34 Florrie noted that her nine-year-old son: Florrie to Ethel Ross, 1 March 1957, Swansea University archives.

  34 When, despairing of Dylan’s repeated failures: J. Morgan Williams, CE.

  34 thirty-third in trigonometry would suggest: ‘Return Journey’.

  34 One of his physics exercise books: this is in the property of Jeff Towns, to whom I also owe the perception about the similarities between the physics lesson and the poem.

  35 ‘The Song of the Mischievous Dog’: SGS Magazine, December 1925.

  35 ‘His Repetoire’: SGS Magazine, December 1926.

  35 ‘The Watchers’: SGS Magazine, March 1927.

  35 ‘Missing’: SGS Magazine, July 1928.

  35 Idwal Rees read: Rees recalled (CE) this was a poem about the armistice. His memory might have been muddled, or he might have remembered the slightly later poem ‘Armistice’, SGS Magazine, December 1930.

  35 ‘His Requiem’: Western Mail, 14 January 1927.

  36 ‘I wrote endless imitations’: Fitzgibbon, The Life of Dylan Thomas p. 48. A slightly different version is in Poetic Manifesto Texas Quarterly, Winter 1961.

  37 Dylan’s parents were so proud: Florrie Thomas, interview with Ethel Ross, Swansea School of Education etc.

  39 ‘I ran down everything’: DT to Percy Smart, 7 March 1931, CL.

  39 he ‘seemed to lack the coarseness’: SGS Magazine, April 1930.

  39 ‘Things We Cannot Credit’: SGS Magazine, April 1930.

  39 ‘ugly, lovely’: ‘Reminiscences of Childhood’.

  39 One young master: J. Morgan Williams, CE.

  40 ‘You don’t known how True-Blue’: DT to PHJ, March 1934, CL 125.

  40 ‘Don’t you go about jeering’, DT to PHL, 9 May 1934, CL 154.

  40 ‘The Fight’: written in 1939, first published in Life and Letters Today, December 1939, and included in his Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog in 1940.

  41 his first known letter: DT to DJ, 30 December 1927, Jeff Towns.

  42 Dan’s previously unknown diary: I am grateful to Daniel Jones’s daughter Cathy and her husband Rob Roberts for making this available.

  42 Dan later recalled: Jones, MFDT.

  42 ‘Vier Lieder’: Daniel Jones, archive A 41, NLW.

  43 meticulous programmes: HRC.

  43 ‘I’m fed up with sculpture’: MFDT.

  43 ‘This luxury has its inconveniences’: unpublished manuscript, no date, owned by Jeff Towns.

  43 The Era: Manuscript owned by Jeff Towns.

  44 she ‘whirled away’: MFDT.

  45 ‘Tell her you love her, boy’: Wynford Vaughan-Thomas, tape Dylan Thomas Society.

  45 He said, ‘You seem so lovely, Chloe’: originally in autograph album owned by Dr Bonnie Luscombe, to whom I am grateful for further details of Dylan’s visit.

  46 Evelyn (‘Titch’) Philips: see her interview, CE.

  46 Writing to Geoffrey Grigson: DT to GG, spring 1933, CL 33.

  47 He later said: DT to HT, 16 May 1938, CL 345.

  CHAPTER 4

  49 ‘ancient peasant Aunt’: DT to VW April 1938.

  49 ‘cracked sing-song voice’: ‘The Peaches’, and ‘fist of a face’: ‘After the Funeral’.

  selling his horse’s shoes: CE

  50 coming out of a pub and kissing: ‘The Peaches’.

  51 ‘in the warm, safe island’: ‘The Peaches’.

  52 old family house at 29 Delhi Street: Rate Book St Thomas 1930, West Glamorgan Archives.

  53 William was drowned: Carmarthen Journal, 17 August 1917.

  53 Dylan looked up to him: Doris Fulleylove, CE.

  54 At a promotional garden party: details of Nancy’s courtship with Haydn Taylor are pieced together from correspondence between Nancy and Haydn Taylor (for which I am grateful to his son Michael Taylor) and from an unpublished memoir by Haydn Taylor (which his daughter Felicity Skelton was kind enough to copy and send me).

  54 ‘lace curtains and no breakfast’: Trick, CE.

  55 ‘Desert Idyll’: SGS Magazine, December 1929.

  55 ‘Modern Poetry’: SGS Magazine, December 1929.

  56 He was also thinking about other media: ‘The Films’, SGS Magazine, July 1930.

  56 ‘Tendencies of Modern Music’: SGS Magazine, December 1929.

  57 he and Dan discussed forming a group of poetry lovers: DJ diary.

  58 ‘Osiris, come to Isis’: for this and other Notebook Poems, refer to Maud (ed.), Dylan Thomas Th
e Notebook Poems 1930–1934.

  59 ‘Even that third-former’: DT to Percy Smart, December 1930, CL 9. noted a transitional period: MFDT, p. 12.

  59 Dylan promptly went out and got drunk: DT to Percy Smart, 25 June (1931), CL 15.

  60 ‘I have realized how terribly worried Daddy is: Nancy Thomas to Hayden Taylor, 24 August 1930.

  60 his father had impressed on him: DT to Percy Smart, July 1931, CL 18.

  60 ‘a rather short, slightly built, almost girlish figure’: Trevor Hughes, memoir, Buffalo.

  CHAPTER 5

  62 Colleagues recalled: Trevor Ogbourne and WG (Bill) Willis, CE.

  62 at the annual dinner of the Licensed Victuallers Association: Trick, CE.

  63 ‘You can do better than that, Thomas.’: Mrs Freda Basset, CE.

  63 ‘Some people are too lazy’: ‘Old Garbo’ (also the source, with ‘Return Journey’ and CE, for further detail).

  65 ‘head in the oven, no nearer heaven’: Poem LVII 1930–1932, Notebook NP 105.

  66 ‘I am at the most transitional period’: DT to Trevor Hughes, February 1932, CL 19.

  66 ‘two hours of almost continual chuckling’: SWEP, 18–20 February 1932.

  67 ‘a remarkable blossoming’: Ralph Maud, Notebook Poems, p. 62.

  67 ‘he stood out shoulder high’: HoW, 19 September 1936.

  67 a six part series on ‘The Poets of Swansea’: see HoW, various dates, January to June 1932; also Davies, Dylan Thomas’s Swansea, Gower and Laugharne.

  69 ‘Beer, I may?’: recollection by Charles Fisher.

  70 Linda Slee: see Tynan Letters (Kenneth Tynan to Elly Horowitz, June/July 1948).

  70 ‘I shall never know’: interview Jill Davies, December 2002.

  70 a back-handed farewell notice: SWEP, 9 September 1932.

  73 One of his last pieces: HoW, 5 November 1932.

  73 ‘little (Oscar) Wilde words’: DT to Percy Smart, ?12 December 1932, CL 25.