Dylan Thomas was born in 1914 in Swansea, an industrial city 25 miles east of Laugharne. Despite the many advantages afforded him, Dylan left school in 1931 with a most undistinguished academic record. He went to work as a reporter on a local newspaper but by December 1932 he had left the only regular employment he had during his life. His interest lay in the theatre and in poetry. By 1934 his poems had appeared in print and on the B.B.C.. By 1936, he had published two volumes of poetry, and was well known in literary circles.

By 1936 he had also met the two women who shaped his life. Margaret Taylor, the wife of the historian, A. J. P. Taylor, became Dylan’s most generous patron. Caitlin Macnamara, a dancer and an erstwhile lover of Augustus John, became his wife in 1937.

In 1938, Dylan came to Laugharne. The 5 months spent there were among the happiest and the most productive of his life. For many years, Dylan and Caitlin drifted, moving when circumstances became too difficult, or when another opportunity presented itself.

When a new collection of poetry appeared in 1946, Dylan became the commercial and popular success that he has remained ever since. From 1949 to 1953 he made four trips to North America where he was immensely successful. Commissions flowed in and he commanded massive fees.

Yet his personal life became increasingly difficult, and his relationship with Caitlin was at breaking point. He died in hospital in New York in 1953, shortly after the first performance of Under Milk Wood. He is buried in St Martin’s Churchyard, Laugharne. Caitlin is buried alongside him.

In Dylan’s short life he wrote an extraordinary amount of letters that amply annotate his broadcasts, filmscripts and radio scripts, poetry and prose, his colourful and often reckless life. Yet they also reveal that Thomas was a master craftsman of poetic complexity and passionate explorations of the body and soul at the threshold of our multimedia age. To many his poetry and his prose are among the greatest artistic achievements of the twentieth century and certainly the most written about poet of the twentieth century.

DYLAN THOMAS AND LAUGHARNE
Laugharne has surprising artistic connections. Richard Hughes, the novelist and author of A High Wind in Jamaica, lived in Castle House, while Charles Morgan, a prominent writer and critic, with his wife the novelist Hilda Vaughan, and Augustus John, the eminent painter, visited regularly.

After a brief visit in 1934, Dylan’s next visit to Laugharne, in 1936, was to have lunch with Richard Hughes, together with Augustus John and Caitlin Macnamara.
In 1938, Richard Hughes found long term accommodation for Dylan and Caitlin, firstly in "Eros" and then in "Sea View". Dylan stayed for 5 months and wrote both poems and prose, especially pieces collected in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog.

In May 1939, Dylan and Caitlin returned to "Sea View" for several months, and he returned briefly in early 1940. From December 1940 they lived in Castle House, and Dylan wrote in the summerhouse perched on the old castle walls.

Dylan lived for many years in houses provided by Margaret Taylor: from 1946 to 1947 in a summerhouse in the garden of the Taylors’ house in Oxford and from 1947 to 1949, in a house in South Leigh, Oxfordshire. In 1949, Margaret Taylor sold the Oxfordshire house and bought the Boat House.

Water and electricity supplies were installed, and in May 1949, Dylan and Caitlin moved in. Despite her own precarious finances and the failure of her marriage, Margaret Taylor provided a home for the rest of Dylan’s life.

After Dylan’s death, Margaret Taylor put the house in trust for Caitlin and the children. In 1973 Caitlin sold the house, and in 1975 it was opened as a memorial to the great poet.

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