260 a row with Taylor: See DT to Donald Taylor, 8 February 1945, CL 601/2.
261 the eccentricities of rural Wales: DT to OW, 30 July 1945, CL 621/2.
261 the Orwellian Ministry of Information: see DT to OW, 28 March 1945, CL 613.
261 ‘It is an essential part of the feeling’: DT to A.J. Hoppé, 18 September 1945, CL 633.
261 ‘for evenings and tears’: DT to David Tenant, 28 August 1945, CL 629.
261 ‘joyful’: DT to Edith Sitwell, 31 March 1946, CL 652.
261 the epitome of the modern Welsh poem in English: see Davies, A Reference Companion, pp. 196–204ff.
262 ‘as if they were packets of cocaine’: quoted in FitzGibbon, Dylan Thomas, p. 279.
262 signposted the contents of the book: Cf. Kipling’s Actions and Reactions, Debits and Credits, and Limits and Renewals.
262 ‘because that is all I ever write about’: Watkins, Portrait of a Friend, p. 88.
CHAPTER 15
264 ‘a sort of middle-class Lady Ottoline Morrell’: Sisman, A.J.P. Taylor.
264 ‘Anybody will do’: interview with Lady Spender, 27 February 2002.
This trip to Oxford may have been the occasion when the Thomases were invited to lunch with the historian A.L. Rowse, who, unable to entertain at All Souls, took them to the Mitre hotel. Caitlin antagonised the sensitive Rowse from the start by announcing as soon as she and her husband arrived, ‘We will have white wine.’ Rowse felt this was not correct form at a time of austerity. The story is mentioned in A Man of Contradictions, Richard Ollard’s biography of A.L. Rowse, though there is no other reference to it.
264 four days in St Stephens Hospital, London: For this hospital stay, see also CL 650.
265 renditions of three poems: Dylan claimed he was not allowed to read from Hardy. For a description, see Louis Macneice in Ingot, December 1954.
265 According to Edith Sitwell: see ES letters to David Horner, 18 May and 28? May 1946, and to Denys Kilham Roberts, 22 May 1946. Sitwell, Selected Letters (Virago).
266 ‘There is a tremendous risk’: Memo, 21 November 1945, BBC Written Archives.
267 ‘a most sensitive and successful piece of radio’: Lawrence Gilliam to DT, 18 July 1946, BBC Written Archives.
267 A Nest of Singing Birds: Picture Post, 10 August 1946.
267 ‘feet apart and head thrown back’: quoted in Carpenter, The Envy of the World, p. 40.
267 ‘a trifle too explosive’: Arlott, Basingstoke Boy, p. 116.
268 ‘became almost Superman’: quoted in Tedlock (ed.) Dylan Thomas: The Legend and the Poet, pp. 41–45.
268 Ruthven Todd lived down the hill at Tilty Mill: see Todd archive, National Library of Scotland.
268 ‘caused havoc’: Spalding, John Minton.
268 proved excellent nannies: see Fraser, The Chameleon Poet, p. 299.
268 For a short while they were tenants: For details see her autobiography A Goldfish Bowl, p. 153ff – though the chronology is difficult to follow.
269 a statutory ‘alcoholically-polite’ pass: Lutyens, A Goldfish Bowl.
269 an enthusiastic review of Deaths and Entrances: Our Times, April 1946.
269 ‘I’m sorry to smell so awful, Edith’: story by Wynford Vaughan Thomas noted by Maud (ed.), Dylan Thomas – The Broadcasts, p. 103.
269 One of his drinking partners: interview with John Veale, December 2002.
270 dinner at Magdalen’s High Table: see Taylor. A Personal History, p. 185.
270 She took him to literary societies: Martin Starkie, an undergraduate at the time, recalls Dylan and Margaret Taylor attending a meeting of the university Poetry Society which he ran. Afterwards she was annoyed because Starkie had not ordered a taxi for herself and Dylan. Personal communication June 2003.
271 a gathering for Lord David Cecil and Hugh Trevor-Roper: Lord Dacre, A.J.P. Taylor and me, Sunday Telegraph, 16 Sept. 1990, quoted in Sisman, A.J.P. Taylor.
271 ‘I disliked Dylan Thomas intensely’: Taylor, A Personal History, p. 130.
272 a small diary: this is at the Harry Ransom Center at Austin.
272 ‘We ate ourselves daft’: DT to VW, 26 August 1946, CL 670.
273 ‘in this tremendous quietness’: DT to Donald Taylor, 26 August 1946, CL 671.
274 Dylan promised not to enter discussions: DT to JL, 1 November 1946, Houghton.
274 ‘a delightful fellow’: Conrad Aiken to Malcolm Cowley, 27 May 1946, Aiken, Selected Letters.
274 ‘yours without any condition’: DT to JL, 24 November 1946, CL 677.
274 ‘aghast’: ES to John Lehmann, 11 December 1946, Sitwell, Selected Letters, Lehmann and Parker (eds).
275 some unwritten stories, which he listed: see list at HRC.
275 ‘He took his radio acting very seriously’: MacNiece, Ingot. December 1954, pp. 28–30.
275 Michael Redgrave had expressed an interest: Dylan had indeed met Redgrave. The literary agent Peter Janson-Smith recalls being introduced to him and Dylan at the Café Royal, when down to London from Oxford during the war. As for the script, Dylan later changed the anatomist’s name to Dr Thomas Rock, which he felt was more in keeping with a distinguished scientist. See DT to E.F. Bozman, 29 December 1952, CL 957.
276 Dylan became excited: see Dt to Graham Greene, 11 January 1947, CL 683.
276 ‘It was all Christmases and birthdays’: DT to Osbert Sitwell, 23 November 1946, Renishaw Papers 532/6, courtesy of Sir Rereseby Sitwell.
276 Dylan was worried about Llewelyn: DT to D.J. and Florence Thomas, 12 January 1947, CL 685.
277 Ayrton had a flat: see Hopkins, Michael Ayrton.
277 He looked forward to taking off six months: DT to D.J. and Florence Thomas, 12 January 1947, CL 686.
278 They took a boat as far as Gravesend: interview with Joseph Rykwert, friend of Ayrton, December 2002. One version has John Arlott on this trip. This would make sense. He worked with Ayrton on the ENSA Brains Trust. When he first worked full-time at the BBC after the war, he stayed at Ayrton’s flat. Maud’s The Broadcasts (p. 292) says they went to Gravesend to research a script on Hogarth for the General Overseas Service. When Dylan was recuperating after his immersion in the river, Ayrton took the opportunity to make some well-known sketches of his friend. Colin Edwards had a story that Dylan was arrested for being drunk and disorderly (see his papers in the NLW).
278 ‘warm-hearted and dull’: DT to T.W. Earp 1 March 1947, CL 691.
278 An uncollected poem: the manuscript is in the HRC.
279 he collected anecdotes: see notebook in HRC.
background research for another talk: possibly, some notes for Dylan’s radio talk ‘Oxford-Princeton’ recorded on 29 December 1946 in an exchange with the New York station WOR.
279 he might have enjoyed being an undergraduate: Martin Starkie, President of the Oxford University Poetry Club once asked Dylan if he regretted not having been at university. Dylan answered enigmatically, ‘If some ways yes, but in most ways no.’ Interview, June 2003.
281 ‘a clean pink ship in the sea’: DT to Edith Sitwell, 11 April 1947, CL 696.
281 ‘like a fiend, a good fiend’: DT to Edith Sitwell, ibid.
282 When Montale arrived to collect the Spenders: interview with Lady Spender, March 2002.
283 he hoped to finish a radio play: DT to DH, 24 May 1947, CL 705.
283 possibly Under Milk Wood: curiously, UMW had an Italian antecedent in Fontanamara, Ignazio Silone’s 1934 novel about the ravages of fascism on an Italian village, which Dylan had once recommended to Bert Trick.
283 ‘I have to stand on my head’: DT to John Davenport, 29 May 1947, CL 706.
283 ‘rarefied and damp’: DT to Margaret Taylor, 20 May 1947, CL 703.
283 a rambling, maudlin letter from the Giubbe Rosse: DT to CT, May, June or July 1947, CL 707.
284 Dylan pronounced it ‘very good’: DT to D.J. and Florence Thomas, 5 June 1947, CL 713.
284 but not as good as Patrick Hamilton: DT to Donald Taylor, 7 J
une 1947, CL 714.
284 ‘I am domestic as a slipper’: DT to MT, 12 April 1947, CL 697.
284 a way of getting Dylan off his back: see Taylor, A Personal History.
285 ‘like a live animal’: DT to DJ and Florence Thomas, 30 June 1947, CL 721.
285 still politely seeking repayment: see Jacopo Treves to DT, 10 March 1950, Indiana. DT had been contacted by Arnold A. Bianchi, a friend of Treves in London, in February 1950, NLW. Italian sources also say Dylan was lent 46,000 lire by the painter Ottone Rosai.
286 ‘Communism in Italy is natural’: DT to Bill and Helen McAlpine, 1 August 1947.
286 a late interview: with Mary Ellin Barrett, The Reporter.
286 This last image, implying man’s baleful harnessing of the sun’s energies: The general tenor of this argument comes from John Goodby’s essay ‘The Later Poems and Under Milk Wood’ from Dylan Thomas in the New Casebooks series, edited by him and Chris Wigginton.
CHAPTER 16
290 an unpublished memoir: Cordelia Sewell, unpublished MS, HRC. I draw on this, with the permission of her daughter Nicola Schaefer, whose own recollections were very helpful.
290 Starkie, a Rimbaud expert: see Enid Starkie, CE.
291 Early in their friendship: see Davin, Closing Times (and for subsequent references to Davin).
291 Dylan’s total tax liability: DH to DT 13 May 1948 HRC. For this and other monetary comparisons I have relied on the excellent Economic History Resources’ site: www.eh.net/hmit/ppowerbp.
292 ‘She’s desperate for me’: King, Yesterday Came Suddenly.
292 ‘maudlin Magdalen Maggie’: DT to CT, 2 December 1946, CL 678.
293 Brenan had last met her in Churriana: see Gathorne-Hardy, The Interior Castle. Frances Partridge received a version of the dustbin story which ended with Dylan exclaiming ‘Forty Thieves!’ She heard from Brenan that Dylan – perennially drunk with ‘his large baby’s head wobbling on its stalk’, but ‘brilliant, amusing, imaginative and poetical’ – was threatening to move to Aldbourne. See Partridge, Diaries, 11 March 1948.
294 arranged to meet Bob Pocock: see Bob Pocock to Dan and Irene Jones, 5 May 1948, private collection.
295 The McAlpines turned up: Bob Pocock to Dan and Irene Jones, n.d., summer 1948, private collection.
295 the singer Lena Horne: see Buckley, The Hornes: An American Family.
295 Helen singing Irish ballads to a group of West Indians: DT to John Davenport, 12 April 1951, CL 884.
295 ‘to cook and char’: DT to Hermann Peschmann, 23 June 1948, CL 753.
296 ‘SHE will go then’: DT to CT, ?July 1948, CL 756.
296 the Poetry Society in Richmond: description in Stanford, Inside the Forties, p. 135.
296 ‘swamped Milton’: The Listener, 30 October 1947.
299 A Nightingale is Singing: Richard Hughes subsequently worked on the script of A Run for Your Money with Leslie Norman and Charles Frend, the director. The film, which starred Alec Guinness, Hugh Griffith and Joyce Grenfell, was released in November 1949. See Graves, Richard Hughes, p. 328ff.
299 ‘Sydney’s carte blanche’: DT to Ralph Keene, 27 July 1948, CL 758.
300 Dylan’s day out with MacNeice: see MacNeice’s account in Ingot, December 1954. Also the letter from MacNeice to his wife 21 July 1948, quoted in Stallworthy, Louis MacNeice, p. 369.
301 the National Liberal [Club]: Dylan was elected to the National Liberal Club in January 1947 and resigned in February 1949. On 10 March 1949 he joined the Savage Club, where his proposer was John Davenport, seconded by Norman Cameron and Parry Jones, principal tenor at Covent Garden. See details at HRC.
301 he bumped into Kenneth Tynan: see Tynan, The Life of Kenneth Tynan, p. 76.
302 ‘staggering along loaded down with string bags’: Alan Brien, Sunday Times, 25 March 1973.
303 Dylan and the Misletoe Bough: story recalled in Paul Redgrave’s unpublished MS Bicycle Ride. This encounter took place in late March or early April 1948.
303 recalled seeing Dylan with Margaret Taylor: Hamburger, A Mug’s Game.
303 ‘Our taste ran to austerity’: Brien, Sunday Times, op. cit.
304 ‘the crazy Welch fellow Thomas’: Kingsley Amis to Philip Larkin, 24 March 1947, Amis, Letters.
304 ‘I think a man ought to use good words’: Philip Larkin to Kingsley Amis 11 January 1947 Larkin Selected Letters
‘Get me some more bloody crème de menthe’: letter from Tynan to his old school friend Julian Holland, c. Michaelmas 1947, quoted in Tynan The Life of Kenneth Tynan.
304 Rio Marina reminded him of Wales: see ‘Under Milk Wood’s birth-in-exile’ by David N. Thomas, New Welsh Review, Spring 2001.
304 ‘A radio play I am writing has Laugharne’: DT to John Ormond, 6 March 1948, CL 744.
305 ‘tired of living among strangers’: ‘Living in Wales’ for BBC Scotland, recorded 16 June 1949.
305 ‘I am a Welshman’: talk at Scottish PEN Centre at Scotia Hotel, Edinburgh, 4 September 1948.
306 ‘Here I am too near London’: DT to Frances Hughes, 10 October 1948, CL 766.
306 Dylan replied he would love nothing better: DT to John Banting, 17 November 1948, Tate Gallery Archives.
306 ‘Nothing happens to me’: DT to VW, 23 November 1948, CL 772.
307 Dylan, the supposed film mogul: see DT to John Davenport, 17 November 1948, CL 771.
308 ‘In the Spring, we go to Wales’: DT to Hector MacIver, 17 February 1949, CL 780.
308 ‘I wake up in the night’: see Mosley (ed.), The Letters of Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh.
309 ‘If all the party members were like you’: Lindsay, Meetings with Poets, p. 29.
which had first published Dylan’s poem ‘Ceremony After a Fire-Raid’: in an issue dedicated to Lorca, put together by Paul Potts. Dylan was not sure, however, if he approved of lines from Lorca being printed above his poem.
311 a small private party to meet Holan: for this and other detail, see interviews with Viola Zinkova, Dr Josef Nezvadba and Aloys Skoumal, CE; see also Lindsay, Meetings with Poets.
CHAPTER 17
313 ‘Now, don’t think I’m interfering, dear’: quoted in DT to Bill & Helen McAlpine, 12 November 1949, CL 809.
314 ‘water and tree room on the cliff’: DT to MT, 11 May 1949, CL 789.
314 ‘Here I am happy and writing’: ibid.
314 starting a notebook for him: this is in the HRC.
315 a remarkably clear-headed and business-like response: DT to JMB, 28 May 1949, CL 790–1.
315 ‘We escaped London and ran smack’: Bill & Helen McAlpine to George Reavey, end of May 1949, HRC.
315 ‘about to be X-rayed’: DT to Wilfred Grantham, 15 July 1949, CL 796.
315 ‘He looked pretty lively’: BBC Written Archives.
316 a former army friend, Desmond Morris: Morris was amazed at his facility with words. See Morris, Animal Days, pp. 26–29: interview with Desmond Morris, July 2002.
317 a talk on Edward Thomas: Dylan included Thomas’s poem ‘The Child on the Cliffs’, which may refer to Laugharne, in his talk, but he did not mention that Edward Thomas had spent a few weeks there in 1911, portraying it as Abercorran in his novel, The Happy-Go-Lucky Morgans.
317 Pocock sent an ambiguous note: Bob Pocock to Dan & Irene Jones, 12 August 1949, private collection.
317 a minor breakdown: DT to John Davenport, 30 July 1949, CL 797.
319 ‘Dylan is very emotional’: quoted in Davin, Closing Times, p. 136.
320 the I-n-s-u-l-t-s column of Strand magazine: Strand, March 1947.
320 living in a slave state: DT to John Davenport, December? 1949, CL 821.
‘I got caught up with rewording’: DT to John Davenport December? 1949, CL 821.
321 When Julius and Ethel Rozenberg were executed: DT to OW, 22 June 1953, CL 1005.
321 she had seen advertisements for Dylan’s forthcoming visit: Elizabeth Bishop to JMB, 14 October 1949, Delaware.
321 ‘If Auden dominat
ed the recent past’: Rexroth (ed.), The New British Poets.
322 ‘because I have gotten the impression’: JL to DT, 6 December 1949, Houghton.
322 ‘Have you heard’: DT to JL, 13 October 1949, CL 803.
322 a New York apartment: belonging to his friend Jean Lawson.
322 ‘I don’t want to turn your American visit’: JMB to DT, 28 November 1949, Delaware; also 22 October 1949.
322 he found Caitlin by turns indifferent: see account in Glyn Jones, Notes on Anglo-Welsh Writers, NLW.
323 ‘a kind of colloquial Lycidas’: DT to John Davenport, December 1949, CL 822.
323 Curnow’s meetings with Dylan: see ‘About Dylan Thomas’ in Curnow, Look Back Harder, pp. 319–325.
323 ‘It would be difficult’: DT to MT, 28 November 1949, CL 818.
324 ‘For he hasn’t a first class brain’: Dan Davin to his wife, New Year of 1950, quoted in Ovenden, A Fighting Withdrawal.
324 ‘She tended, when in the pub’: Davin, Closing Times, p. 139.
324 ‘it is only frightening when I am whirlingly perplexed’: DT to Marguerite Caetani, 12 January 1950, CL 826.
325 ‘Thomas’s silence is a worry’: JMB to Bill Read, 30 January 1950, Delaware.
325 ‘How to be a Poet’: with illustrations by Ronald Searle, this was published in Circus in two parts in April and May 1950, while Dylan was in America.
326 ‘I won’t have you tied up’: quoted in Gill, Peggy Guggenheim.
CHAPTER 18
In writing about Dylan’s visits to America, I acknowledge my debt to the work of John Malcolm Brinnin – particularly his book Dylan Thomas in America and his unpublished memoir, letters and invaluable diary which are in the Special Collections department of the Library of the University of Delaware.
329 ‘it is all an enormous façade’: DT to DJ and Florence Thomas 26 February 1950, CL 835.
329 enjoyed American food: ibid.
331 Breit’s interview: see Breit, The Writer Observed.
332 ‘He was most objectionable’: see Porter’s interview in (Baltimore) Sun Magazine, 26 October 1969. Another literary take on the event was Karl Shapiro’s poem ‘Emily Dickinson and Katherine Anne Porter’.
334 ‘second-rate Charles Laughton’: see Breit, op. cit.
Dylan Thomas: A New Life Page 58