laugharne

“A tiny dingle is Milk Wood
By Golden Grove ‘neath Grongar,
But let me choose and oh! I should
Love all my life and longer

To stroll among our trees and stray
In Goosegog Lane, on Donkey Down,
And hear the Dewi sing all day,
And never, never leave the town.”

~ Dylan Thomas, Under Milk Wood

A thorough sojourn into Dylan Thomas country brings the pilgrim traveller from Swansea to Laugharne (pronounced "larn"), as well as contiguous Carmarthenshire and the Gower Peninsula. The southern coast of Wales, west of Swansea, progresses to winding roads, villages, cliffs, and sands. Considering how Dylan had lived his young years through the Depression and the bombardments of World War II, my impression is that Dylan grew to cherish the contrasting tranquility of Laugharne- as well as some of the local characters he later portrayed in Under Milk Wood.

Arriving in Carmarthenshire, after crossing the country from north to south, advancing westward from the industrial cities of Cardiff and Swansea, I experienced a gradation toward open rural landscape and ocean. Walking from The Grist, near Laugharne Castle, to Market Street, then Victoria Street, the handful of shops, tea rooms, and taverns gave way to the Cliff Road- which thins and threads into Dylan’s Walk. As paths silence and simplify, the landscape broadens.

Pilgrimage by its very nature unfolds, continues, extends, and enwraps. The voyage of discovery is a vehicle whose value appreciates with mileage. Each introduction and extended walk broaden the spectrum of the soul’s sense of creation. Coastal terrain, replete with turns, exemplifies the uniqueness of each single stride and corresponding vantage point. Welsh roads wend and ascend with the land, unveiling views with movement. Motion is implicit- not simply of physical paces, but also of thought. Thus, intrinsic to the pilgrim journey is opportunity: As one’s steps manifest their inquiries, opportunities may be sought as well as created. Inevitably, the pilgrim traveller cannot be entirely passive. After all, to seek is to be actively conscious.

With two visits to Laugharne, in the space of a week, my thoughts returned to the very purposefulness in travelling to Carmarthenshire, to South Wales after North Wales- and even to Wales itself. To explore is to inquire of a place, and both sojourns to Laugharne each became something extraordinary as my steps would reach the path to the Boat House, called Dylan’s Walk. As the leafy narrow path turns leftward, with the estuary at the right, the places I’d seen in pictures and on book-covers blossomed into the living three-dimensional present. From the tiny writing shed to the ledgelike Boat House, my senses convinced me of my arrival. This was an instance of reality far exceeding anticipation. And surely the impression was not confined to the boat house alone. The home’s fresh-aired environs provide its contextual impact. The jutting structure is surely moored to Laugharne, its estuary, the ancient castle nearby, and coastal roads.

The Boat House at high tide.











Leaving some Maine shells for Dylan.

On the first occasion, I visited the Boat House as part of a gathering devoted to writing, the spoken word, and cultural exchange. Throughout a balmy mist, an eclectic group that shared an admiration for Dylan shared anecdotes about the writing journey. Jackie Hayden read from his new book which compared Bob Dylan with Dylan Thomas, in a musician’s journey. A distinguished poet who is also the Arch-druid of Wales read Dylan Thomas in the beautifully lyrical Welsh language. (When we greeted each other, I wished him “shalom aleichem, from one ancient root to another,” and he liked that very much.) The writers’ evening concluded with folk music from Wales and Ireland, along with jovial toasts of wine- all on the wooden deck of the Boat House- followed by a conversational nighttime procession of writers and musicians along Dylan’s Walk to the Portreeve Tavern. Indeed, and integral to the sharing of journeys, pilgrims enjoy one another’s company. More toasts and cheers, with pencil and journal just under the rim of my plate of fish and chips. An evening for all the senses.

Dylan's Writing Shed

My second visit was on a sunny and quiet late-morning. It was a chance to really visit the house’s interiors and stroll the length of the sands between Dylan’s Walk and the town. There was time to see the writing-shed and enjoy just a few conversations and plenty of silence. The initial visit emphasized people, and the quieter second visit was for the surroundings to speak to me. And I could build upon an established sense of direction. Exploring a new place enkindles impulses to stabilize one’s bearings. It may take the form of sensing where north is, or east, or the ocean, or the direction to the center of town. That sense of bearing can manifest in steeled cities of millions, as well as around the village clock. Exploration provides for the absorption of environment and place.

Laugharne Castle

From the daytime estuary walk, I was able to view the town from atop the towers of Laugharne Castle. The small town blends references to the region’s antiquity, along with testaments to Dylan’s life. Brown’s Hotel, the Seaview House, and their situating narrow streets provide more stations for the literary pilgrim. Dylan fancied the “timelessness” of the old-fashioned “dwindling seaport,” with its intimate confines and simpler ways. He described Laugharne as “a legendary lazy little black magical bedlam by the sea." Though barely forty miles from the city of Swansea, Laugharne seems a much greater distance away. An equivalent (though with greater distance) would be the contrast between Boston and Downeast Maine. Before setting forth from Laugharne, en route for Rhossili and Carmarthen, it was of great importance that I see Dylan’s grave to pay my respects. He had died in New York, and I’ve visited Saint Luke’s on Hudson Street, in Greenwich Village, where his funeral had been. His grave is at Saint Martin’s, in Laugharne. I left Dylan some Maine seashells, and told him about what a Portland lad does for work in the land Sarah Orne Jewett called The Country of the Pointed Firs.

Now my thoughts of these journeys are retrospective, and my perceptions of Dylan’s life and writing are enhanced. Equally enhanced is my admiration for Wales, once again with Dylan’s footsteps in the lead.

Rhossili and Carmarthen Bay

good companion

“Don’t be too harsh to these poems
until they’re typed.
I always think typescript
lends some sort of certainty:
at least if the things are bad
then, they appear to be bad with conviction.”

~ Dylan Thomas

Being entrusted with the Dylan Thomas birthplace and family home for a week was both a profound honor and a matter of great comfort. I felt entirely at home. It had been made very clear to me by my hosts that I could open, sit on, cook with, and operate anything in the house. But making myself at home means doing things with care and reverence. Obviously, all the furnishings and decorations are antiques. I marveled at how the chairs, sofa, clocks, and tables must have greeted an extraordinary variety of visitors. As a gracious guest, I ate and sipped from well-loved plates and cups. An old travel habit of mine is to always bring along a small radio; in a rather lifelike manner, a radio will adapt to its environs and receive only its most proximate signals. Though incongruent with the 1900s-era house, I discreetly placed the little set on the Thomas dining table, tuned to Radio Wales. After all, the present visits the past which greets the moment.

My wanderings in the plain yet unusual house inevitably led to finding some favorite perches. From outside, the house resembles the other contiguous row houses. The home’s distinction is found within; it was clear that Number Five has a kind of soul, one that welcomes and approves of inhabitants being at ease- and writing. On my initial explorations of the small rooms, I was immediately captivated by the typewriter on the desk in the family study.

This Imperial Good Companion sounded through the working days of the elder D.J. Thomas, schoolmaster, and his celebrated son and one of the world’s great poets- Dylan Thomas. Along with everything else in the house, the old typewriter was unlocked and just as casually accessible as the shelved books, the spindled gramophone records, and the hutched dinner plates. At first, in my respectful deference, I’d write next to the tools on the desk, with my typewriter next to Dylan’s and using my fountain pen next to his ink stand. Being a guest in the house, it was already a great gift to inhabit the space and write at the desk.

At first, I typed alongside the Good Companion.
The Splendid and The Good Companion : how salubrious!

But my hospitable and trusting host encouraged me to live in the house, and not simply inhabit the rooms. Arriving one morning with the first of my reading audiences, the house’s curator could hear my typing from the outside front path, and entered exclaiming, “what a perfectly wonderful sound!” It may have been very many years since sounding streams of typed words had filled the front rooms. The following day, returning to the desk, I tried writing on the Good Companion. Compared to my 1960s Olympia, the antique machine seemed raw and tinny- but it worked just fine, albeit through a dry ribbon. Remembering that I had packed an extra typewriter ribbon for my journey, I ran up the sets of steep steps to my suitcase. But before making the dash, standing up from the old typewriter, I habitually patted it with a “be right back.” After a thumb-blackening respooling of my spare new ribbon onto the old metal Imperial hubs, I began writing with the Good Companion.

The Good Companion writes again (note ribbon wrappings at left). Test example in photo below.









After switching to Dylan's typewriter, I set aside my fountain pen, in favor of his ink stand and dip pens. Indeed, I was well at home!

Picking up speed, I developed a feel for the uncalibrated roller-advance and the way typed letters strike at the top of the platen facing upward, compared to the more modern orientation of typebars striking at the operator’s side of the roller- facing the typist. The bell had an egg-timer’s chime. Typing journal entries and a few letters to mail, I thought of D.J. Thomas, Dylan Thomas, sounds of words, forms of words, and aromas of rained-upon slate surfaces through the open windows. Through the day, my unscrapably inked thumbs and index fingers were writer’s emblems in a great Welsh city of writers.

The Uplands section of Swansea, Wales.

The Uplands neighborhood of Swansea has the ambience of a compact, self-sufficient hilltop village within a metropolis. Surely, the city has its own distinctive character, though I recognized glimpses of old familiar places in Portland and Boston among the steep terrain and bay views from even the humblest buildings. Meandering streets wind out of an artery called Uplands Terrace and collect at Gwydr Square.

Views of shops on the Square, with a noble bakery red dragon (above), and the newsagent's (below).





Above: the view toward Cwmdonkin Drive (Dylan's street) from the Gower Kitchen pub. Below: shops along Uplands Terrace.





Harrison's of Swansea : best stationer in town, and the proprietors are as fabulous as the goods they sell.

At the square which converges several roads are shops, eateries, and pubs- essentials which include bakeries, second-hand shops, a bookstore, a grocer, and Swansea’s best stationer: Harrison’s. One morning, after mailing letters into a slot in a stone wall, procuring bread at Davies, and cheese at Sainsbury’s, I stopped in at Harrison’s. The best errand saved for last was an enduring reward, as Mr Werrett the shopkeeper found a beautiful British-made unlined journal for me- which I purchased- along with a supply of rich blue-black ink, Derwent pencils, and Gillott pen points (all British made). In our very pleasant chat, we talked shop, comparing notes about the materials we use to practice our crafts. It was heartening to hear the Joseph Gillott company is still producing; I’ve been writing with their pen points since I first took up calligraphy when I was twelve. Mr. Werrett kindly packed the blank hardcovered journal well for my long journey back to Maine. We wished each other a good summer, and I climbed the curved streets back up to Dylan’s house.

Re-outfitted to continue exploring and writing, breaks in the weather opened the ways for journeying to southwestern Wales. With Dylan’s house as a home-base, it was as enjoyable to be indoors as outdoors, and surely the spirited Good Companion was never far away.

Below: writing in Dylan's childhood room.












Gower Peninsula

swansea

“Oh yes, I remember him well,
the boy you are searching for:
he looked like most boys, no better, brighter,
or more respectful;
he cribbed, mitched, spilt ink, rattled his desk
and garbled his lessons
with the worst of them...”

~ Dylan Thomas, Return Journey

While planning my travels to Wales, the prospect of exploring the places frequented and inhabited by Dylan Thomas became yet an additional pilgrimage. A lifetime of reading and admiring the brilliantly innovative poet from Swansea led to a thirst to know more. In this recent decade, I’ve regularly read Dylan Thomas’ work to audiences, notably his colorful narrative Child’s Christmas in Wales annually. Known simply as Dylan in his hometown, I had the supreme pleasure of a week’s worth of tracing the poet’s steps, seeing the places of so many of his words, and actually living and writing in his home. Enquiring of the Dylan Thomas Centre about regional places to visit, I was put in touch with the curators of both the Centre and of the famous birthplace and home at 5 Cwmdonkin Drive. As our long-distance communications evolved into collegial friendships, I’d sent portions of La Vie Graphite abroad, particularly with my many references to Dylan. Warm and spirited invitations grew out of these written conversations.

The Dylan Thomas Centre, Swansea.

Following two weeks in north Wales, my pilgrim travels to south Wales were met with an extraordinary welcome in Swansea. Months of correspondence helped strengthen bonds of friendship, leading to the most beautifully unlikely “welcome home” I’ve ever experienced- beginning at the Swansea central train station, and continuing to Dylan’s home, which is in the Uplands neighborhood.

Dylan Thomas' birthplace and home : 5 Cwmdonkin Drive, Swansea.

Imagine being enthusiastically and genuinely welcomed home to a place you had never seen before. As these images linger, it seems to me this reception is a taste of heavenly spheres in eternity: the welcoming embraces, an extraordinary sense of familiarity, and all in places I had never visited until having arrived. As a Portland Mainer in Swansea, the many tastes of home include steep streets ascending from rock-ribbed shores, the seaport, and hospitable shopkeepers. As Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s stamp is indelibly on Portland, so Dylan Thomas is everpresent in Swansea. Dylan’s likeness and his words appear enshrined around town. Swansea was his birthplace and the city to which he returned after occasions in which he experienced life away from the region, and the returns permitted his continuum with Swansea to deepen as his voice seasoned with time.

Longfellow mused about his “dear old town” of Portland, “seated by the sea.” Dylan referred to Swansea as his “ugly, lovely town,” and I recognize endearment in his expression. Port cities are gritty, yet when they are located on beautiful seacoasts loveliness abounds with their pervasive rainy gusts. “The fishingboat-bobbing sea” may have come to Dylan in nearby Laugharne, but it is indeed the same sea as Swansea. Settling into Dylan’s home was accompanied by the parallel gifts of vantage points. Peering from the same windows, I looked out to the same locations as he did. His paths, his childhood’s Cwmdonkin Park across the street, his back garden, and his front steps.

Cwmdonkin Park, Swansea.

The neighborhood streets are clutch-straining steep, with railings along some of the sidewalks. Though the Uplands district of town is surely more now than Dylan’s description of, “a square, a handful of shops and a pub," in the first half of the last century, the terraced hilltop neighborhood evinces an intimate sense of self-sufficiency. Essentials around the square include bakeries, eateries, grocers, and a great stationer. Any neighborhood ought to be so fortunate. The view out to Swansea Bay and The Mumbles can be enjoyed from most streets, and this aspect immediately brought Portland’s sloping Munjoy Hill to mind.

Above photo: Dylan Thomas wrote about this window view. As a child he said the ships rode over the rooftops.

Living for a week at Number Five, I greatly cherished writing in Dylan’s house, and making myself at home. The curator of the house, who lovingly maintains Dylan’s home in its circa-1920 splendor, encouraged me to live in the house- to use the rooms, furniture, kitchen, larder, and tiny scullery. The gramophone in the parlor works. Dylan’s father’s study has his typewriter- an Imperial Good Companion- and it works just fine. I installed a fresh new ribbon on it, as I’d brought along a spare for the long journey. After all, it’s home. On the study desk, next to Dylan’s typewriter, I found the century-old inkstand intact and ready with two dip pens. The curator had filled the glass inkwell with new India ink. With great respect, I wrote with these tools, often looking to the back garden from the door near the desk.

The sojourn was surely as social as it was introspective. After arriving to a rousing writers’ event out at Dylan’s boat-house in Laugharne, steeped in misty chilled air, festivities followed the next day at Number Five. I read some of my own writing, along with a portion of Dylan’s Under Milk Wood to two audiences. Between readings, with my typewriter placed at the center of the room, we all spoke about creative processes. Some people asked me about why I came to Swansea and about my history with Dylan’s poetry. A few asked about my Olympia Splendid 33, gleaming on its perch; I was asked if it was brand-new, and replied that it wasn’t, but rather had been spruced-up at a typewriter shop back in Boston. I spoke at some length to both audiences about pilgrimage, drawing parallels between visiting Dylan’s home, along with his favorite places, and visiting the Walden Pond and Concord of Henry David Thoreau. Exploring where the words came from, appreciation becomes a lived and beautiful adventure. Discovering the sources of words reveals their contextual colors. When written words are spoken, their native sounds are set forth. With this in mind, I told the audiences that the sounds of words are as important as their very meanings.

Through the week in Dylan’s house, which was his birthplace as well as childhood-into-adulthood home, I found a few favorite perches of my own. Among his books, it was impossible not to smile when I saw a well-used and thick volume of Longfellow’s poems among his shelves of classic English and Welsh literature. As I like to do at home in Portland, I brought my writing out to Number Five’s front steps. Indoors, it was the palpable warmth of Dylan’s dining room that captivated me most. It is at the heart of the ground floor, between the bottom of the stairs and the kitchen, with a side door leading to a side walkway to the back garden. The entire house has an overspreading and welcoming warmth. It had been pointed out to me that Dylan’s mother, of warm and religious temperament, made the home especially hospitable. It was easy to imagine them together, while remembering my mother and my childhood self. Then I realized I was actually in the very home that is so tenderly described in A Child’s Christmas in Wales.

Foyer at midnight.




Dylan's childhood bedroom.





Above: Kitchen; Below: Scullery.







Above: Study; Below: Corner of Parlor.




Kitchen door to back garden.

Though the entire experience is something I will treasure all my days, I especially relished staying up late at night and writing at Dylan’s dining table. Cwmdonkin Drive is a very quiet street, and the house stands peacefully at ease. The curators added a bottle of wine, along with my other provisions for the week. At night, I would toast Dylan in his home, while writing at the dining table. On one occasion, I wrote my toast of gratitude to the poet right in my journal. After visiting many places and listening to numerous stories, all with Dylan’s steps in common, I penned my words of thanks to the bard of Swansea who continues to bless others, long after his earthly life has passed.

Writing at Dylan's family dining table.