Llareggub

Laugharne which is pronounced "Larn" was the final home of Dylan Thomas, a Welsh poet and writer. He had a fairly short interesting life and spent most of it drinking too much. He grew up in Swansea then spent some time in London and managed to avoid conscription by having a dodgy lung. His fortunes went up and down and at one point he visited the home of historian A.J.P. Taylor and stayed for a month even thought Taylor disliked him intensely and Thomas spent most of his time drinking, despite this he turned up again homeless a few years later and Taylors wife Margaret let Thomas and his wife stay in the garden summer house, later Margaret bought them their home in Laugharne for £2,500 in 1949, perhaps that was the only way to get rid of them.
    He was invited by John Brinnin, an American poet and literary critic, to New York to tour art centers and campuses and give talks, during most of which time he seemed to be drunk and this in itself became part of the appeal for the audience. On return he wrote the first thing I ever knew about Dylan Thomas which was 'Under Milk Wood'. It was to be a 'play of voices' about characters that inhabit a small village - Laugharne, set within a 24 hour  period. I only know of Under Milk Wood because during an arts foundation course we had to illustrate a some writing. I think, I hope I still have my illustrations of Under Milk Wood, which at the time I thought was Undermilkwood, all one word.
    So of I went to Laugharne to visit the home of a poet of who only one piece of work I had heard off. I parked at the church car park at the top of town and walked in through the neat and tidy houses to the waterfront and then down the lane to Dlyan's Boat House, first is the writing shed perched on the edge with a fantastic view over the harbour and then a little bit further down the lane is the house itself. The bottom half of the house was now a tea room. After the house I carried on down the lane with turned into the Welsh Coast Path, after a while I turned up a lane which came back to the church again, Dylan Thomas is buried here and in a sunny field are the newer graves and the poets stands out as a simple white wooden cross. I then went back into the village again to look around the castle which has an exciting turret that you can climb all the way up via a narrow staircase. It was a lovely day so hard to see where the rather gloomy inspiration came from for his fictional town of Llareggub which is 'bugger all' spelt backwards.

The next day  I went to Rhossili beach on the Gower peninsula for a walk, it's a very dramatic coast line with a headland called Worm Head only accessible for 2 hours at low tide over a causeway. I walked up to the headland in the pouring rain, it was too wet to do any other walks so I walked back again. Later I watched on You Tube a 1972 a Richard Burton film of Under Milk Wood filmed in Fishguard.