In search of Llareggub

To begin at the beginning: 

It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent and the hunched, courters'-and-rabbits' wood limping invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboatbobbing sea. 

Never can I read those opening lines of Under Milk Wood — Dylan Thomas's acclaimed 'play for voices' — and not hear the deep, mellow tones of Richard Burton. Click here and listen a while for yourself... but do come back.

The play chronicles a day in the life of Llareggub, a backward little town, somewhere on the West Wales coast. But where?

The place most closely associated with Dylan Thomas is Laugharne (pronounced 'Larn'), which he first saw in 1934 when he was 19 years old. Four years later he moved his family there, but had to leave during the war years. He longed to return and finally did so when a besotted patron, actress Margaret Taylor, bought the lease of the Boathouse for him. It's now a tearoom and a museum of Dylan Thomas's life and work.

In the prologue to his Collected Poems Thomas calls the cottage:

... my seashaken house

on a breakneck of rocks

tangled with chirrup and fruit,

froth, flute, fin and quill

at a wood's dancing hoof...

Just above the Boathouse is this cliff-side shed where he wrote most of Under Milk Wood.  

Locals will tell you that Thomas not only drew inspiration for Llareggub from the town of Laugharne, but that, to all intents and purposes, Laugharne is Llareggub. The poet himself disagreed... but if you wanted to live in peace in the town, you'd probably say the same!

————

The residents of New Quay disagree. I went there to check out their story.

Dylan Thomas came to live in New Quay in 1944 where, says this guide book, he made a start on Under Milk Wood. The guide goes on to say:

Much of the topography of Llareggub ... is like that of New Quay, the cliff-perched toppling town. So are many of the play's characters: Willy Nilly, Tom Fred, Cherry Owen, Captain Cat and Polly Garter were inspired by real New Quay people who are still remembered in the town today.

For instance, there's the The Hungry Trout restaurant, which used to be the Post Office. Jack Lloyd was a postal worker there in DT's day and was also the town crier. In Under Milk Wood, says the guide, postman Willy Nilly had a role like that of a crier. Well I couldn't find a line in the play like that, but I'm sure it's there somewhere. And so the claimed associations continue.

The cliff-perched, toppling town... (Under Milk Wood)

The Arethusa, the Curlew and the Skylark, Zanzibar, Rhiannon, the Rover, the Cormorant and 
the Star of Wales tilt and ride... no more. Today the harbour is a haven for pleasure craft.

In truth, the claims of both Laugharne and New Quay have merit.  Like many accomplished writers, Dylan Thomas drew inspiration from the people and places that he knew well and there's doubtless a good dose of both towns in Llareggub.  However, quite why either place should wish to be closely associated with that backward place remains a mystery to me!

This story does, however, have a twist. In 1971 Lower Fishguard was chosen as the location for the film Under Milk Wood, starring Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor and Peter O'Toole. Fishguard is perhaps best known as the location, not for a film, but of the last successful invasion of Britain by a force of 1400 French soldiers. They sensibly surrendered two days later.

This is Lower Fishguard, a place blighted these days by the main A487 trunk road that threads its tortuous way on narrow streets between the old houses. Now I must choose my words carefully, so as not to offend any locals that may perchance alight upon my little corner of the Internet, but I think you will agree that there's not a lot there. Indeed, you might even say that there's b.g.er all!