Dylan Thomas: A New Life

by Andrew Lycett

  177 ‘I’ve told him how absurd’: Glyn Jones to KR, 18 March 1937, NLW.

  177 ‘very experimental and not left’: KR to GJ, 1 March 1937, NLW.

  178 varied pool of talent: see KR to GJ, 14 March 1937, NLW.

  178 ‘they all try and write like Dylan’: KR to GJ, n.d., NLW.

  178 ‘Confident, ear-catching and barely comprehensible’: Mathias, A Ride Through the Wood, p. 299.

  178 a reverse Pilgrim’s Progress: DT to Bert Trick, summer 1935, CL 220.

  178 ‘a marvellous blend of Bali and St John the Divine’: KR to Glyn Jones, 27 July 1937, NLW.

  179 ‘The main obstacle to [Dylan’s] fulfilment’: Nigel Heseltine to KR, 23 March 1937, NLW.

  179 found him unchanged: KR to Glyn Jones, 6 September 1937, NLW.

  179 ‘The only thing a young Welsh writer should do’: KR to Glyn Jones, 6 Sept. 1937, NLW.

  179 A young fellow of Swansea called Tummas: Nigel Heseltine to KR, 12 September 1937, NLW.

  180 Dylan amused the refugee children: Kerith Trick, ‘Bert Trick – the original Marx brother’, New Welsh Review, autumn 2001, p. 50.

  180 ‘When she smokes a cigarette’: VW to Francis Dufau-Labeyrie, 30 August 1937, private collection.

  180 ‘Mr Thomas owned a lot of books’: Devas, Two Flamboyant Fathers.

  182 ‘I make one image’: DT to Henry Treece, 23 March 1938, CL 327.

  184 ‘He should do some real work’: KR to Glyn Jones, 11 December 1937, NLW.

  184 three poems by Antonia White: see Dunn, Antonia White, p. 235. The cheque was cashed on 25 January: Dylan told Charles D. Abbott of Buffalo University that he would be in London from 24 January. Letter, DT to C.D. Abbott 17 January 1938, Buffalo.

  185 some of the most exciting modern writers: DT to George Reavey, March 1938, CL 321.

  186 ‘I have been watching [Dylan’s] work’: JL to Beatrix Baird, 11 February 1938 Houghton.

  186 a significant unpublished statement: DT to Bob Rees, n.d., early 1938 copy West Glamorgan Archives.

  187 Nicolette told a story: Devas, Two Flamboyant Fathers, p. 193.

  187 ‘We are stages beyond poverty’: DT to Lawrence Durrell, early January 1938, CL 309.

  187 ‘Swansea is still the best place’: DT to Charles Fisher, 11 February 1938, CL 317.

  187 ‘I’m leaving here next week’: DT to KR, 10 March 1938, CL 320.

  187 a rash promise to give Laughlin the American rights: DT to JL, 28 March 1938, CL 332/3.

  188 a mistake: DT to Wyn Henderson, 13 July 1938, CL 361.

  188 ‘a good place’: DT to James Laughlin, 7 May 1938, CL 340.

  189 a Victoria Cross: interview with Douglas Williams.

  189 ‘jive-man’ Richard Hughes: DT to Henry Treece, 1 June 1938, CL 349.

  190 hoping to write many more stories: DT to Desmond Hawkins, 16 March 1938, CL 323.

  191 ‘very Lawrence in style’: KR to Glyn Jones, 4 November 1937, NLW.

  191 ‘exotic rhapsodies’: KR top Glyn Jones, 13 March 1938, NLW.

  191 ‘not up to standard’: Nigel Heseltine to KR, 26 February 1938, NLW.

  191 the ‘first truly Welsh Anglo-Welsh product’: Nigel Heseltine to KR, 24 December 1937, NLW.

  192 ‘this racial talk’: DT to Henry Treece, 1 June 1938, CL 349.

  192 a mass-poem: DT to Meurig Walters, 28 March 1938, CL 333.

  192 he offered one of his ‘new’ realistic tales: DT to George Reavey, 16 June 1938, CL 351.

  192 ‘How much younger’: JL to DT, 11 May 1938, Houghton.

  193 he did not need an agent: DT to JL, 17 May 1938, CL 345.

  193 Laughlin did nothing to disabuse him: JL to DT, 11 May 1938, Houghton.

  193 Dylan claimed ignorance: DT to JL, 28 June 1938, CL 356.

  193 the agent had only acted for him: DT to JL, 27 July 1938, CL 364.

  193 ‘I don’t require any more the services of an agent’: DT to JL, 17 May 1938, CL 346.

  193 ‘queries galore’: Beatrix Baird to JL, 29 June 1938, Houghton.

  193 his 1938 anthology New Directions in Poetry and Prose: The poems printed were ‘How shall my animal’, ‘In memory of Ann Jones’ and ‘I make this a warring absence’, though the stories were held back for contractual reasons. Dylan was described as the name on ‘the tongue of every young poetry reader in England. His poetry is verbal sculpture – almost fiercely strong.

  193 ‘The propaganda is underway’: JL to DT, 10 July 1938, Houghton.

  194 ‘virtually stole’: L to Baird, 1 August 1938, Houghton.

  194 the ‘stage house’: Grindea, Adam International, p. 9.

  194 ‘[The Thomases] live in frightful squalor’: AJ to Dorelia McNeil, August/September 1938, NLW.

  194 ‘neuter’: DT to Henry Treece, 1 September 1938, CL 373.

  194 Charles Fisher: see note in Charles Fisher’s personal diary, May 17 1938: ‘Drove to Laugharne to see Dylan and show him the first chapter of our novel which is apparently all right.’ Mr Fisher tells me that Dylan said ‘something like “A good start. Fine.” We then went over to Browns (where else?)’ E-mail, 24 January 2003.

  194 Fisher happened to be there: CF’s diary, 9 August 1938. Mr Fisher added, ‘I recall this latter part of the evening well. Augustus and I were deeply engaged in talk, but Dylan was saying nothing, not like him at all.’ Eventually Dylan said in staccato phrases, ‘I’m sorry. I want to say things. It’s just … that I am unable to speak.’

  195 ‘a terrible war month’: DT to VW, 14 October 1938 CL 376.

  196 ‘a disappointing school-society’ (and further comments): DT to Henry Treece, 24 March 1938, CL 327: 16 May 1938, CL 343 and 6 or 7 July 1938, CL 358.

  197 ‘What a mincing lot we were!’: DT to John Davenport, 4 November 1938, CL 386.

  197 ‘too often like a man shouting under the sea’: DT to T. Rowland Hughes, 3 November 1938, CL 385.

  198 ‘Must you be a Georgian writer’: DT to John Davenport, 14 October 1938, CL 377.

  198 ‘I will not spend a lot of time and money’: JL to Miss Johnson at Ann Watkins, 17 January 1939, Houghton.

  198 ‘a cliché-ridden humbug’: DT to Henry Treece, February 1938, CL 316.

  199 ‘It really is an insane city’: DT to VW, 20 December 1938, CL 392.

  199 ‘sit and hate my mother in law’: DT to Charles Fisher, January 1939, CL 403.

  200 ‘I’ve got the willies of London’: DT to Lawrence Durrell, 28 December 1938, CL 395.

  200 London remained a ‘nightmare’: DT to VW, ?8 January 1939, CL 402.

  201 ‘soft, white, silly ravens’: DT to VW, 20 December 1938, CL 393.

  CHAPTER 12

  202 a ‘small, square giant’: DT to Desmond Hawkins, 12 March 1939, CL 416.

  204 ‘very paltry’: DT to John Prichard, June 1939, CL 433.

  204 ‘sort of provincial autobiography’: DT to David Higham, 11 May 1939, CL 426.

  204 his ‘earlier world’: DT to Richard Church, 1 May 1939, CL 254.

  204 ‘As I can’t make money by what I write’: DT to John Davenport, 11 May 1939, CL 428.

  205 ‘Why not an article on Firbank, too?’: DT to KR, 7 January 1939, CL 400–1.

  205 ‘We must have this man’s script.’: BBC Written Archives.

  206 ‘It is mainly a poetry of the elemental physical experience’: Seven, Autumn 1939.

  206 ‘a little Danzig’: DT to VW, 25 August 1939, CL 453.

  206 ‘If I could pray’: DT to D.J. Thomas, 29 August 1939, CL 455.

  206 two military policemen: see Letters to Vernon Watkins, p. 71.

  207 Lynette Roberts: earlier Roberts had stayed at Sea View where she recalled Dylan telling her that, as she was there, he could have her any time he felt like it. She reported that ‘fortunately’ nothing happened. See Lynette Roberts, ‘Parts of an autobiography’, Poetry Wales 19, 2 (1993).

  207 ‘Ca-at. Can I have a plum?’: Watkins, Portrait of a Friend, p. 64.

  Dinner with Mrs David at Minerva: recal
led by Ann Stark, November 2001.

  209 a Christmas entertainment: Frances Hughes, CE. See also Graves, Richard Hughes, p. 283.

  209 ‘flippant’ mock-Joycean title: DT to VW, 30 January 1940, CL 497.

  ‘all I want is time to write poems’: DT to John Davenport, 14 September 1939, CL 464.

  210 ‘one Daddy to another’: DT to Bert Trick, 29 September 1939, CL 471.

  210 ‘prepared to die for something’: Trick, CE.

  210 declare himself a neutral state: DT to Desmond Hawkins, 3 September 1939, CL 461.

  211 ‘Is it any worse to receive a good salary’: DT to Rayner Heppenstall, 2 November 1939, CL 480.

  211 ‘I want a war-escaper’: DT to VW, 13 December 1939, CL 494.

  212 ‘a proper city book’: DT to JL, 15 April 1940, CL 511.

  213 ‘my great horror’s killing’: DT to Sir Kenneth Clark, 1 April 1940, CL 508.

  213 Rupert Shephard and Lorna Wilmot’s visit to Laugharne: see Shephard’s diary (source of the clerihew) and Wilmot to Eleanor Scott, draft 20, May 1940.

  214 a total of £126.12s.0d: Spender to Francis Brett Young, 3 June 1940, University of Birmingham.

  214 H.G. Wells meanly declined: H.G. Wells to Stephen Spender, 20 May 1940, Houghton.

  217 ‘Dylan-shooting begins.’: Hansford Johnson, Important to Me, p. 146.

  218 Another fearful fantasy: DT to VW, early September 1940, CL 524.

  219 ‘when I tell you I clung to them,’: quoted in Dunn, Antonia White, p. 250.

  219 a putative opening: DT to VW, 8 August 1940, CL 522.

  219 Florrie had optimistically told: Nancy (Thomas) to Haydn Taylor, n.d., Taylor papers.

  220 ‘Is this Mr Pullham’s residence?’: see FitzGibbon, With Love.

  220 his ‘poem about invasion’: DT to VW, September 1940, CL 526.

  220 John Royston Morley: he had edited the short-lived magazine Janus which published ‘The Horse’s Ha’ in 1936.

  220 ‘He came in to see me today’: BBC Written Archives.

  221 five different announcers: DT to John Davenport, 8 January 1941, CL 533.

  221 ‘so much a visual poem’: VW, Notes on Dylan Thomas, unpublished.

  221 ‘a mixture of Oliver Twist’: DT to VW, 22 May and 28 May 1941, CL 546/548; also DT to John Lehmann, early October 1941, CL 556.

  222 ‘When I want advice from Alec Waugh’: DT to John Davenport, 27 Jan. 1941, CL 538.

  222 a letter of grovelling apology to de la Mare: DT to de la Mare, 23 April 1941, Bodleian.

  222 ‘She bites the hand that makes her sick’: Evelyn Milton, née Phillips, CE.

  223 ‘There had been a pub on the corner’: Trick, CE.

  223 ‘I’m not, by the way, thinking of film-work’: DT to Kenneth Clark, 23 March 1941, Tate Gallery.

  223 ‘I’d rather be a poet anyday’: DT to Clement Davenport, 2 April 1941, CL 540.

  223 Individual Happiness Now (IHN): see Horrocks, Len Ley.

  CHAPTER 13

  225 the Gargoyle Club: See Luke David Tennant. For additional material about war-time London, see Sinclair, War Like a Wasp; Hewison, Under Siege; Stanford, Inside the Forties.

  227 claimed to have been offered work on several scripts: DT to VW, 28 August 1941, CL 555.

  228 Strand’s ‘ringing, clinging’ offices: DT to Ruth Wynn Owen, ?May 1942, CL 560.

  229 thinking darkly about those who could afford to go to restaurants: DT to VW, 28 August 1941, CL 555.

  229 ‘Hell of a fine man’: Larkin to J.B. Sutton, 20 November 1941, [Larkin, Letters]. For another description, see Hindsights by John Heath-Stubbs, one of the contributors to Eight Oxford Poets. Larkin was to change his attitude after the war.

  230 a party in Christ Church: see Hamburger, A Mug’s Game.

  230 accompanied by his undergraduate friend John Mortimer: see Mortimer, Clinging to the Wreckage, p. 81ff.

  231 Dinner with Maclean: FitzGibbon, With Love.

  232 ‘Dylan looked only a little embarrassed’: interview with author, November 2002; see also Mackworth, The Ends of the World.

  232 As she explained to her sister Brigit: Caitlin, p. 91.

  232 a recce for a film in Scotland: This was possibly Children’s Story, a Strand production for films of Scotland which appeared in January 1943, or part of an ongoing project to portray different regions in Strand’s ‘Pattern of Britain’ series of films.

  233 as he had told another Scots poet Hamish Henderson: see ‘That Dolphin Torn, That Gong-Tormented Face: Dylan in Bloomsbury’ by Hamish Henderson, Cencrastus, no. 47, spring 1994.

  233 Dylan encouraged Graham to pursue his ambition: W.S. Graham to William Montgomerie, 5 July 1942.

  233 Evan Hugh MacDiarmid: see Hugh MacDiarmid to Valda Grieve, 7 July 1942 (MacDiarmid, New Selected Letters).

  234 ‘the country’s the one place’: DT to T.W. Earp, 30 August 1942, CL 565.

  234 Remembering that Dan Jones: Dan had by now been married, fathered two children and divorced.

  235 the tallest man in uniform: Watkins, Portrait of a Friend.

  237 ‘Once on the dancing floor’: Sachaverell Sitwell to Edith Sitwell, 25 October 1942, quoted in Skipwith (ed.), The Sitwells.

  237 Dick Wyndham’s fun-loving 21 year old daughter Joan: for this story and accompanying quotes, see Wyndham, Love is Blue.

  238 ‘an Oscar Wilde with less talent but no homosexuality’: quoted in Bakewell, Fitzrovia.

  239 rival condottieri: see Davin, Closing Times.

  239 fascination with hermaphroditism: see Devas, Two Flamboyant Fathers.

  239 Fathers Dylan and Maclaren-Ross: see Willetts, Fear and Loathing in Fitzrovia.

  240 wondered if Dylan was the right person: Dylan Thomas, The Filmscripts, p. 27.

  242 ‘the words were written to be spoken & heard’: DT to Donald Taylor, ?October 1944, CL 587–8.

  242 ‘hack work’: Elizabeth Fusco, CE.

  CHAPTER 14

  243 ‘horse-faced and Byronic’: Stanford, Inside the Forties, p. 133. For Minton and associates also see Spalding, John Minton.

  244 Gerald Kersh recalled: GK to Constantine FitzGibbon, 1 April 1965, courtesy Paul Duncan.

  245 according to his brother Philip: Philip Lindsay made several observations on Dylan’s life around this time. I am grateful to Helen Cole of the State University Library in Queensland not only for bringing these citations to my attention but also for arranging them to be copied.

  244 ‘skipping’ down Tottenham Court Road: Fusco, CE (and for further observations over the next page).

  244 ‘one Hogarthian night’: John Banting, unpublished memoir, Tate Gallery archive.

  245 been to a psychiatric unit: Lindsay, Meetings with Poets, p. 21; see also CL 601–2.

  245 rubber fetishism: Lindsay, Meetings with Poets, p. 23.

  245 She admits she succumbed: interview with Ann Meo, September 2002.

  246 ‘robs his £3-in-Post-Office mistresses: John Gawsworth’s diary in Verse Notebook VIII, 5–18 December 1940, quoted in Sinclair, War Like a Wasp.

  246 Theodora Rosling’s betrothal: see FitzGibbon, With Love.

  246 Vernon Watkins was married: see Watkins, Portrait of a Friend.

  248 the poem ‘Du Nachbar Gott’: see Watkins, Portrait of a Friend p. 119.

  249 ‘shack at the edge of the cliff’: DT to OW, 28 March 1945, CL 613.

  250 Tom Herbert, an ambitious Welsh-speaking vet: I am grateful to Herbert’s widow, now Mrs Jacqui Lyne, for the opportunity to examine his interesting papers.

  250 one of two people who taught him all he knew: see Hastings, Evelyn Waugh.

  250 ‘Caitlin wasn’t exactly polite’: AJ to Mary Keene, 5 March 1945, courtesy Alice Kadel.

  251 ‘seminal in the evolution’: Ackerman (ed.), The Filmscripts, p. 230.

  251 a film life of Charles Dickens: see FitzGibbon, With Love, p. 166.

  251 ‘Only once did I catch Dylan reading a good book’: quoted in Lindsay, Meetings with Poets, p.
23.

  252 Barnes was unimpressed: Barnes to AT Davies, 6 January 1945, BBC Written Archives.

  252 captions to another Bill Brandt photo-essay: printed in Ackerman, Dylan Thomas Companion.

  252 ‘Fitroy Street could be paved with tits’: Banting Memoir, Tate Gallery Archive.

  254 ‘very dignified, articulate, and charming’: AJ to Mary Keene, n.d., Alice Kadel.

  254 ‘Dylan has a split personality’: AJ to Mary Keene, 5 March (1945), Alice Kadel.

  254 ‘Dylan is an extraordinarily abnormal person’: Mary Keene to Henry Yorke, n.d., Sebastian Yorke.

  255 Dylan’s ‘class consciousness’: Augustus John to Mary Keene, 5 March (1945), Alice Kadel.

  255 ‘I’m delighted that Thomas’ cloven hoof’: Henry Yorke to Mary Keene, 26 February 1945, Sebastian Yorke.

  255 the Commercial pub: Now The Seahorse, the former Commercial was earlier known as the Sailor’s Home Arms, leaving some enthusiasts to suggest that this was the model for the Sailor’s Arms in Under Milk Wood.

  256 an affair with Dylan: Vera Killick never really denied this, telling her family shortly before her death that she retained one great secret. But if she did have an affair with Dylan, it is more likely to have been in Swansea or in London before her marriage.

  256 ‘as if one were visited by the Gestapo’: Mary Keene to Henry Yorke, n.d., Alice Kadel.

  256 ‘I’m sorry Dylan was no good’: Henry Yorke to Mary Keene, 24 June 1945, Sebastian Yorke.

  257 ‘The ordinary moments of walking up village streets’: DT to VW, 26 February 1945, CL 607/8.

  257 ‘frightened as though I had used the Sten gun myself.’: DT to VW, 28 March 1945, CL 610.

  257 ‘awfully ill’: DT to VW, 28 March 1945, CL 610.

  257 chipping away … like an old carpenter: see Watkins, Portrait of a Friend, p. 120.

  257 ‘Less passes Uncle Head’s blue-haired pencil’: DT to VW, 19 April 1945, CL 615.

  258 a modern existentialist perspective: see Maud, Where Have All the Old Words Got Me?, p. 261.

  259 ‘Crowds queued for hours’: Ziegler, London at War, p. 309.

  259 ‘a little Nagasaki’: DT to OW, 5 December 1945, CL 639.

  260 ‘My dear my dear my dear Caitlin’: DT to CT, 24 June 1945, CL 619.

  260 ‘filmscripts on Rehabilitation’: DT to OW, 28 March 1945, CL 612.