While clearing out some stuff I came across an old audio cassette of Dylan Thomas's 'Under Milk Wood' from when I did my English A Level. Sadly the cassettes are no use to me anymore, cassettes being a victim of the technology revolution. But just seeing the cassettes sent me out to get a new copy of the book, I just had to read it again. Sadly no hypnotic Welsh voice of Richard Burton, but still the wonderful words sounded Welsh in my brain as I read the words in front of me. As I read about 'the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea', I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck tingling - God I love that book!!
For those of you who do not know the book, it is actually a 'play for radio' written in in 1953 by the wonderful Dylan Thomas. It actually started out with the title 'Quite Early One Morning'; and originated when When Thomas was staying at Newquay. On one of his early winter morning walks in the sleeping town ( ' all the people of the lulled and dumbfound town are sleeping now' to quote Thomas) stories and poems came into Thomas's mind about the sleeping inhabitants . He wrote the book in 1943 and recorded it for radio in 1945. For 8 years Thomas continued to work on the book until in 1953 it had become 'Under Milk Wood ', On a tour of the United States Thomas read some of the play in public and then recorded a performance of it. Dylan Thomas died two months later at the age of 39. Two months after he died the play was broascast on the radio by the BBC on 25th January 1954 with Richard Burton taking the part of the 'First Voice', one of the two narrators of the play, as he introdces us to village Llareggub ( Thomas's humour showing here as Llareggub reads bugger all backwards!!) ....'To begin at the beginning: It is Spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black'
The play in fact is an extraordinary story of ordinary people - but it is full of pathos and humour. It draws the reader ( or listener) into the world of the the people living in Llareggub - Coronation Street, Cockle Row, Llareggub Hill, Donkey Street, etc; and we are introduced to the fantastic characters that live there. the whole play is full of humour and has a distinctly strong Welsh flavour. Basically it is simply the story of a spring day in the lives of the vast variety of the inhabitants of this little Welsh village situated under Milk Wood. There is no plot to the play just a whole host of wonderful characters who tell their stories as they dream . From Captain Cat - the old blind sea captain who dreams of his long dead sailor friends, to Mr. Willy Nilly - the postman, who even in his sleep thinks that he is delivering the post, and every night knocks on his poor wife Mrs. Willy Nilly, as if she were the door; - because of this she dreams of being spanked by her teacher for being late for school.. Altogether there are 33 such characters, each with their own personaliies and foibles.
Under Milk Wood is such a joy to read; you can feel the joy, attention and love that Thomas put into the incredible words. Every description leaps out of the pages, Thomas's use of words draws us a picture of those wonderful people, their houses and the landscape.We are with them before they wake, we travel with them through their days activities and we watch as they go to sleep again - at the end of the play we know and love those characters just as much as Dylan Thomas did.