Dylan Thomas: A New Life

by Andrew Lycett

  73 ‘already showing signs of a reporter’s decadence’: DT to Trevor Hughes, early January 1933, CL 28.

  74 ‘to feel November air/And be no words’ prisoner’: This is one of a number of poems not in any manuscript notebook which Dylan typed and took up with him to London in August 1933. Professor Ralph Maud has argued plausibly that these ‘typescript poems’ came from a notebook which covers the seven months between July 1932 (the end of one notebook) and January 1933 (the start of the next). When Dylan came to revise this particular poem for his first published book 18 Poems in 1934 he changed the month from November to October – probably to coincide with his birthday. In October 1934 he was twenty. Marking his birthdays in poetry became a tradition. Ten years later, he celebrated his ‘thirtieth year to heaven’ with his ‘Poem in October’ (actually written in August 1944).

  74 He observed the obsequies: DT to Percy Smart, c. 12 December 1932, CL 25.

  75 ‘No novelists any good except me’: DT to Percy Smart, ibid.

  CHAPTER 6

  76 a piece for the Post: SWEP, 7 January 1933.

  77 his ‘incurable disease’: DT to Trevor Hughes, early January 1933, CL 28.

  77 he claimed that Sir John Squire: DT to Trevor Hughes, ibid.

  77 ‘I continue writing’: DT to Trevor Hughes, 8 February 1933, CL 32.

  77 ‘She is dead.’: DT to Trevor Hughes, 8 February 1933, CL 31.

  78 Dylan had to counsel his friend: DT to Hughes, ?early January 1933, CL 27.

  78 he pilloried the role: DT to Hughes 8 February 1933, CL 32. For the background see Herald of Wales, 24 January and 7 February 1933.

  79 ‘Dylan liked a bit of old ham’: Eileen Davies, CE.

  80 When Dylan tried this: Ruby Graham, CE.

  80 ‘a communist grocer’: DT to PHJ, c. 11 November 1933, CL 68.

  80 His family, originally from Devon: see Kerith Trick, ‘Bert Trick – the original Marx brother’ New Welsh Review, No 54, Autumn 2001, pp. 43– 51.

  81 ‘that is the only way to get the music’: Bert Trick, ‘The Young Dylan’, Texas Quarterly Summer, 1966.

  81 ‘We’d start on modern poetry’: Trick, CE (unless otherwise indicated Trick’s observations come either from this source of from his Texas Quarterly article).

  82 ‘Dylan had no politics at all’: Leslie Mewis to author, July 2002.

  83 Dylan was still a cub reporter. Trick, CE.

  83 his visitor was seventeen: Country Quest, autumn 1960.

  83 Dylan’s relationship with Trick: Even with the evidence of the notebooks, it is difficult to pinpoint Trick’s precise influence on Dylan’s poems. At the start of their friendship in 1932, Dylan read Trick some poems which later appeared in his first book, 18 Poems, published in December 1934. Or so Trick remembered over thirty years later in Texas Quarterly. But his recall of dates needs to be treated with scepticism. According to Professor Ralph Maud’s precise tabulation (The Notebook Poems), none of the notebook models for the 18 Poems extends back to 1932. The earliest, which found durable form in ‘Before I knocked’, is from 6 September 1933. Could Dylan have read to Trick from a missing notebook, possibly the one covering the months July 1932 to February 1933? Although Dylan later reprised a handful of his earlier poems (most obviously, ‘The Hunchback in the Park’, published in Deaths and Entrances in 1946, but drawing on a poem originally dated 9 May 1932), the majority of those published in his first two collections – 18 Poems and Twenty-five Poems – can be traced to notebook poems written between February 1933 and April 1934.

  84 ‘And death shall have no dominion’: first published New English Weekly, 18 May 1933. Trick’s effort was not so ambitious, but beguiling enough to be published in SWWG, June 1934.

  85 His heaven was a Buddhist-style nirvana: ‘Now understand a state of being, heaven’, 18 May 1933.

  86 the young man gave a naughty smile: Trick, CE; Trick dated this reading to 1933.

  86 James A. Davies is correct: Davies, A Reference Companion, p. 169. a friend from his Bristol days: information from Taylor’s daughter Felicity Skelton.

  87 A Little Theatre performance of Sophocles’s Electra: Eileen Davies, CE; Dylan’s poem ‘Greek Play in a Garden’ HoW, 15 July 1933.

  89 Murry ‘is interested in the symbols of the world’: DT to Hughes, May 1933, CL 35.

  89 Orage asked him bluntly if he were a virgin: see Heppenstall, Four Absentees.

  89 The bibulous Malcolm Lowry: see Bowker, Pursued by Furies.

  CHAPTER 7

  90 For Victor Neuburg, see Calder Marshall, The Magic of my Youth, Goulder, Mark my Words, and Neuburg, Vickybird.

  91 nice body but poor brain: DT to PHJ January 1934, CL 116. Over the next year, most of Dylan’s comments on himself, his work and Pamela are taken from his correspondence with PHJ. Apart from three letters, this correspondence covered the period September 1933 to October 1934. It is found between pages 38 and 194 of the Collected Letters. A few additional observations come from PHJ’s diaries for this period, which are in the Lockwood Memorial Library of the State University of New York at Buffalo.

  One admirer: interview Canon Fred Cogman, August 2002.

  91 One of the work-sheets: I am indebted to a conversation with the Dylan Thomas expert Robert Williams for this. See also ‘Dylan Thomas and the Welsh language’, the article he penned with Ralph Maud in the New Welsh Review 42 (1998).

  99 Born Winifred Simpson: ‘Runia Tharp’ was born in Madras on 18 April 1879 and died in London on 10 November 1970. She had a daughter by Leslie Bellin-Carter and two sons by Charles Tharp. I am indebted for this and related information to Runia Tharp’s daughter-in-law Silvia Tharp and her grand-daughter Ros Tharp.

  ‘Trying the Modern Experiment’: see Calder-Marshall, The Magic of my Youth.

  103 an anthology of Recent Poetry: this was edited by Alida Monro, widow of the Imagist founder of the Poetry Bookshop.

  103 Graves, no great enthusiast: see Graves, The Crowning Privilege.

  CHAPTER 8

  105 ‘Have you seen the Gauguins?’: see Tedlock (ed.), The Legend and the Poet, p. 23.

  106 an anthology of English-language poems: DT to Glyn Jones March 1934 CL 121.

  108 the announcement of Dylan’s prize: Sunday Referee, 13 May 1934.

  111 ‘The Orchards’: dated October 1934 in the Red Notebook, published The Criterion, July 1936.

  112 Dylan weighed in with a letter: DT to SWWG, 8 June 1934, CL 168.

  112 Mainwaring Hughes retaliated: SWWG, 15 June 1934.

  113 ‘the obscene hypocrisy’: SWWG, 6 July 1934, CL 177.

  114 Geoffrey Grigson’s questionnaire: New Verse, No 11, October 1934.

  114 ‘from pit-boy to poet’!: Hansford Johnson, Important to Me, p. 143.

  116 his scandalous story ‘The Burning Baby’: ‘The Burning Baby’ was written before the end of the year and due in a new quarterly, Art in January 1935, though not actually published until May 1936 in Contemporary Poetry and Prose. (This was a couple of months before The Orchards was published in The Criterion.) For background on Jones’ and Dylan’s meeting with Caradoc Evans see The Dragon Has Two Tongues, Glyn Jones.

  116 Dylan was influenced: Glyn Jones, CE.

  117 In May he had told: DT to Hamish Miles (an editor at Cape), ?May 1934, CL 161.

  117 He argued in Adelphi: Adelphi, Vol 8, No 6, September 1934.

  117 ‘Oh, he’s nobody’: Glyn Jones archive, Trinity College, Carmarthen. A.P. Herbert was a friend of Desmond Hawkins. See end of chapter.

  118 Bert Trick claimed: CE.

  118 ‘And as for the Workers!’: DT to Glyn Jones, mid April 1934, CL 141–2.

  120 ‘a little too close’: DT to Glyn Jones, December 1934, CL 206.

  121 several Blue Moon writers: Woodcock, Letter to the Past.

  122 Runia Tharp told a Gothic tale: see Grindea, Adam International.

  123 ‘a curious mixture of slut and whore’: MacNiven and Moore (eds), Literary Lifelines.

  124
he also claimed to have met: DT to Trick, December 1934, CL 204.

  CHAPTER 9

  126 Connolly was ‘completely ensared’: from a file read by Jeremy Lewis in the Connolly archive in the University of Tulsa. He kindly supplied me with his excellent notes.

  126 several ‘ladies representing fashion rather than literature’: Connolly Journal and Notebook.

  127 ‘Did you say swishing?’: for a slightly different perspective on this gathering, see Powell, Faces in My Times.

  127 Waugh was not aware of any rudeness: EW to Constantine FitzGibbon, 24 December 1964, Waugh, The Letters.

  127 His own youthful behaviour: according to his friend Noel Annan in Our Age, Waugh said that Dylan reflected what he would have been if he had not found Catholicism. Waugh in his letter to FitzGibbon said that Robert Byron noted the resemblance between him (Waugh) and Dylan.

  127 Pelting pebbles at bottles: Lewis Cyril Connolly, A Life. Lewis tells me that this was a recollection by Gascoyne in an interview with him. No date was given for the trip to Selsey. It sounds like another elaboration on Thomas mythology. In his ‘Recollections of Dylan Thomas’ London Magazine, Vol 4 no 9, 1975, Geoffrey Grigson wrote about a similar exercise during his trip with Dylan to Ireland. He and Dylan drew the faces of literary figures on white pebbles and cracked them against the rocks. However his story had an elaboration – that the faces included his bête noire Edith Sitwell. See GG to Constantine FitzGibbon, 4 Oct. 1965, Berg.

  127 J.D. Williams using his regular diary column: SWWP, 1 January 1935.

  128 His riposte in an interview: Sunday Referee, 30 December 1934.

  128 Bert Trick downplayed: SWWG, 11 January 1935. Further engagements in this debate came two weeks later (Jennings), 1 February (Hughes) and 8 February (Trick again).

  128 Spencer Vaughan-Thomas: the Vaughan Thomases were sons of David Vaughan Thomas, a leading Welsh composer. The first review had been in the Morning Post, via if not in the hand of Grigson, on 1 January 1935.

  129 ‘If there was one empty, dirty milk bottle’: Florrie to Ethel Ross Swansea College of Education Arts Festival magazine, 1966.

  129 ‘what they priggishly call “the class struggle”’: DT to Bert Trick, ?mid-February 1935, CL 212.

  129 reviews of 18 Poems: Adelphi, February 1935; Time and Tide, 9 February 1935.

  130 a basement bar in the King’s Road: Heppenstall, CE.

  130 drinking club: Ruthven Todd refers to an unlikely club called Mummy’s, where they would compete for the favour of a girl they called ‘Fluffie’; see Todd, Dylan Thomas’ unpublished memoir National Library of Scotland. Dylan referred to Fluffy, ‘the chorus-girl with glasses’ in a letter to Desmond Hawkins, 16 September 1935, CL 227.

  130 ‘Poetry, Jacobean and Metaphysical’: DT to Desmond Hawkins, 15 May 1935, CL 216.

  130 ‘He had a fund of stories’: Hawkins, When I Was, p. 118.

  131 Alban Berg’s then little-known opera Wozzeck: Rayner Heppenstall, CE.

  131 ‘Words to him were like flags’: Hawkins, When I Was, p. 119.

  131 earn extra money: Grigson estimated that Dylan made £5 per week this way. See his letter to Bill Read, 10 Jan. 1964, Berg.

  131 modernism’s ‘Inner Command’: Grigson, Recollections, pp. 81–8.

  132 Norman Cameron’s poetry: see Jonathan Barker’s introduction to Norman Cameron’s Collected Poems, Anvil Press Poetry, 1990; also Hope, Norman Cameron.

  132 ‘Dylan suddenly appeared chez Norman’: Hope, Norman Cameron.

  132 Janes recalled him: unpublished memoir, courtesy Hilly Janes.

  133 ‘I lend once’: Taylor, A Personal History (on which I rely for much of the other detail about this visit).

  135 got drunk, picked up a girl: DT to DJ, 14 August 1935, CL 223.

  135 ‘wild, unlettered and unfrenchlettered country’: DT to BT, summer 1935, CL 218–9.

  136 ‘we had a blistery scene’: Grigson to Bill Read, 10 January 1964, Berg.

  136 ‘the blindest blind’: DT to Desmond Hawkins, 16 September 1935, CL 227.

  137 ‘Everywhere I find myself’: DT to Trick, summer 1935, CL 218.

  138 WARMDANDYLANLEY-MAN: DT to Dan Jones, 14 August 1935, CL 224.

  138 ‘nothing but a protracted dirge’: DJ to Thornley Jones, 16 November 1935, Roberts.

  139 ‘the writings of a boily boy’: Marjorie Adix in Tedlock (ed.), Dylan Thomas: The Legend and the Poet.

  140 reminded commentators of James Joyce’s Ulysses: see Tindall, A Reader’s Guide, p. 142 et al.

  140 a conscious attempt to ‘get away’: DT to Glyn Jones, December 1936, CL 272.

  141 ‘As Kneller was to the Kit-Kat Club’: DJ to Thornley Jones, 16 November 1935, Roberts.

  141 ‘Dylan is still here’: Tom Warner to Dan Jones, dated Wednesday, posted 16 October 1935, Roberts.

  142 practice of sponging off Cameron: see Todd archives, National Library of Scotland.

  143 ‘When he disappeared’: Grigson, Recollections.

  144 ‘it’ll be Rat Week always’: DT to OB, n.d. CL 236. Blakeston and Chapman’s claims to have had affairs with Dylan were reported in Gay News, October 1977.

  144 evasive action: see Ruthven Todd’s annotation to his personal copy of Fitzgibbon (ed.), Dylan Thomas: Selected Letters, property of Jeff Towns.

  144 ‘ought to be dashed off to a psycho-analyst’: Edith Sitwell to John Sparrow, May 1934, quoted, Pearson, Facades, p. 307.

  144 ‘I want to ask him some questions’: ES to Robert Herring, 27 January 1936, quoted in Pearson, Facades, p. 308.

  145 ‘She isn’t very frightening, is she?’: DT to Robert Herring, 30 January 1936, CL 240.

  145 he ‘stands a chance of becoming a great poet’: ES to Christabel, Lady Aberconway, Sitwell: Selected Letters, Lehmann and Parker (eds), p. 54.

  145 ‘charming, a great man’: DT to VW, 20 April 1936, CL 249.

  145 best summaries of his literary beliefs: SWGG, 17 January 1936.

  146 ‘so tired of sleeping with women I don’t even like’: Heppenstall, Four Absentees, p. 96.

  146 next door to Virginia Woolf’s brother: the Stephenses’ daughter Judith married Wyn Henderson’s artist son Nigel.

  146 a powerful homosexual love story: see Read, The Days of Dylan Thomas, p. 82.

  CHAPTER 10

  150 Caitlin ‘unfairly romped’: Devas, Two Flamboyant Fathers, p. 78. This book has been useful in sketching out the Macnamara family background.

  150 Dillon School of Dancing: Vivien John, unpublished memoir (courtesy Julius White).

  150 Rupert Shephard painted her several times: Shephard diary (courtesy Ben Shephard).

  152 Caitlin has put is specifically at 12 April: see Caitlin: Life with Dylan Thomas and Double Drink Story.

  152 ‘Life No 13’: DT to VW, 20 April 1936, CL 249.

  152 ‘from the constipation of logic’: Penrose, Scrap Book.

  153 ‘came in and tied a mouse to an exhibit’: Gascoyne to author, September 2001. The cup of boiled string story appears in different places, including Hope, Norman Cameron.

  154 Fred Janes was back in Swansea: see Hilly Janes’ Biographical Notes in Alfred Janes’ 1911–1999 catalogue of the retrospective exhibition at Glynn Vivian Art Gallery.

  154 en route to Fishguard: see Augustus John to Dorelia McNeil, 20 July 1936, NLW.

  155 Frances Hughes saw things differently: CE.

  155 his passengers ‘osculating assiduously’: Augustus John to Dorelia, 20 July 1936, NLW.

  155 ‘possessing it in great milky wads’: DT to DH, 21 August 1936, CL 265.

  158 Empson noted revealingly: ‘London Letter’ Poetry (Chicago), January 1937.

  159 ‘I would do, or attempt, anything for you,’: Richard Jennings to Edith Sitwell 30 November 1936, Berg.

  159 ‘Have you see young Dylan Thomas’ Twenty-Five Poems?’: Edith Sitwell to Kenneth Clark, 10 January 1937, Berg.

  159 ‘a Young Poet untainted with Eliot’: Grigson to Bill Read, 10
January 1964, Berg.

  160 the fresh-faced full-lipped Coleman: her description of her life and her affair with Dylan are taken from her diaries, University of Delaware.

  161 a passionate affair: DT to Emily Holes Coleman, 28 & 29 January 1937, CL 274.

  161 ‘Your new love affair must be “hurried”’: Djuna Barnes to Emily Holmes Coleman 10 January 1937, Delaware.

  163 ‘brilliant, bitter, and sometimes bawdy invective’: minutes of Nashe Society, St John’s College, Cambridge.

  165 ‘It is only among poor failures’: DT to Emily Holmes Coleman, 29 March 1937, Delaware, CL 283.

  165 ‘All my friends are failures’: DT to George Barker, 4 April (1937), CL 284.

  165 ‘Gods knows where’: telegram DT to Emily Holmes Coleman, 6 April 1937, CL 285.

  165 ‘I was not the only one abroad’: fragment in Veronica Sibthorp papers, NLW.

  166 David Gascoyne ran into Dylan: Gascoyne, Journal 1936–37, pp. 86–7.

  167 ‘A nice mess-up all round.’: memo, BBC Written Archives.

  167 ‘absolutely a physical removal’: DT to CT, early May 1937, CL 285.

  168 The last time I slept with the Queen: verse recalled by Todd in his unpublished memoir.

  168 Veronica kept an album: descriptions of various drawings and verses over the next two pages come from this album in the National Library of Wales. The Library dates the material to 1936 and 1937, but there is reason to believe later items – up to 1939 – are included.

  170 Elizabeth Fusco: her memoir is in CE under the name ‘Elizabeth Milton’.

  171 a close conspiracy: DT to Caitlin Macnamara, November or December 1936, CL 271.

  172 ‘I spent some time combing’: Augustus John to Caitlin Macnamara, Thursday Sibthorp papers, NLW.

  173 ‘the young irresponsibles’: D.J. Thomas to Haydn Taylor, quoted note CL, p. 287.

  173 ‘with no money’: DT to VW, 15 July 1937, CL 294.

  CHAPTER 11

  174 The Weekend Book: owned by Jeff Towns.

  175 they ate in the morning: DT to PHJ, 6 August 1937, CL 295.

  175 ‘Somebody’s boring me’: Heppenstall, Four Absentees, p. 139.

  176 Rys likened Dylan to Dafydd ap Gwilym: KR to Gwyn Jones, 14 March 1937, NLW.