Polly Garter analysis

Conceiving Polly Garter

The name Polly was familiar to Dylan from early childhood - it was the family name of one his maternal aunts. The name later appeared in some of Dylan's writings, including the film script, Three Weird Sisters, and in Adventures in the Skin Trade. In the latter, Polly Dacey is "up to no good", as her mother puts it, in an upstairs bathroom, trying to pull a bottle off Samuel Bennet's finger, coaxing him to undress and getting him drunk on eau-de-cologne. Her dead lover, who "was ever so short", prefigures Polly Garter's dearly departed, little Willy Wee.

 In his interviews in the 1960s, Colin Edwards was particularly interested in the development of Under Milk Wood. Several interviewees shared their opinions about the inspirations for some of the play's characters. It is hardly surprising that Polly Garter attracted special attention; Jane Dark, for example, told Edwards that in Laugharne we

"had the sort of Polly Garter type...I can quite understand when he wrote this part about “when this person went past, people were quiet” – I mean, they were quiet!"

Edwards' search for the "original Polly", as he once put it, was doomed to failure because, unknown to him, Under Milk Wood was a play of two halves, two time periods and two countries. The development of the play's characters was thus exposed to a wide range of inspirations and circumstances. This is reflected in the role of Polly Garter. There are, in fact, two Polly Garters in Under Milk Wood: "mothering Polly" and "naughty Polly". Dylan pointed to both in his cast list for the play, when he described her as:

"midwife. Loves children, loves loving, is loose and thoughtless, therefore has children."

Dylan's idea of Polly as both a lover of children and a lover of men is also captured in a phrase he uses in the second half of the play, when he describes Polly's "naughty mothering arms and body." In their search for the original Polly, Edwards and his interviewees focussed only on the "naughty Polly." Any search for the original has to look for someone who fits the profile of both Pollys; alternatively, we must consider that there may have been more than one woman who inspired the part.

In the incomplete 28-page and 1950 BBC scripts, there is no sign of the "naughty Polly". These two scripts have only the "mothering Polly", a very small part with just four lines:

"Babies"

"me, Polly Garter, giving the breast in the garden to my new

 bonny baby and listening to the voices in the voices of

 the blooming birds who seem to say to me:" (followed by a children's song 'Polly, Love.') [i]

The role of Polly as baby bearer was confirmed by the following exchange between the Pughs:

    "Mrs Pugh: He's going to arrest Polly Garter, mark my words

    Mr Pugh: What for, my dear?

    Mrs Pugh: For having babies."

There is nothing explicitly here about the woman who loves loving. However, in his October 1951 letter to Princess Caetani, publisher of the Botteghe Oscure, Dylan describes Polly in the following way: "And Polly Garter has many illegitimate babies because she loves babies but does not want only one man's." Even in this description, the emphasis is on Polly as "the lover of babies", and as someone who could just as easily be seen as rejecting monogamy rather than embracing casual sex - Polly as polyandrous not promiscuous.

When a version of the first half  BBC script was published in Botteghe Oscure in May 1952, the idea of Polly just as "mother" had not been changed. In fact, Dylan made only one small alteration to Polly's four lines. The same month, he read the Botteghe version at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, with help from Bill MacAlpine and Harry Locke. He deleted "and listening to the voices of the blooming birds who seem to say to me" and added "Nothing grows in our garden 'cept washing and babies." [ii]

So by mid-1952 the first half Polly still had only four lines, and she was simply a bearer and lover of babies, at ease in her garden, enjoying the singing of the birds. She dreams only of babies, not lovers. It was this maternal Polly who was in the half-script that Dylan had with him when he arrived in America in April 1953. The "naughty Polly", or the wanton Polly as she is often referred to, emerged as a substantial part in the few weeks after Dylan's arrival. By the May 14 premiere, Polly had become a lover of men as well as of babies. She is a singer and cleaner, a scrubber of floors. She makes love out of doors, and wears garters without stockings. She dreams not of babies but of lovers. She is Saint Polly, martyred in Milk Wood by Mr Waldo; she is a woman "that can't say No even to midgets."

When Dylan turned to writing the second half for the May 14 performance, he decided to begin with Polly. Captain Cat's commentary on the women gossiping around the pump that ends the first half had been a mere six lines in the Botteghe version. Now Dylan greatly expanded it, bringing in Polly towards its conclusion ("giving her belly an airing, there should be a law,"). After a few words about Ocky Milkman, Dylan starts the second half with Polly approaching the pump, and clearly establishes the idea of the "naughty Polly". The women fall silent and Captain Cat wonders "Who cuddled you when? Which of their gandering hubbies moaned in Milk Wood for your naughty mothering arms and body like a wardrobe, love?"

This portrayal is quickly followed by the first of Polly's songs, about her lovers Tom, Dick, Harry, and little Willy Wee. In case we are left in any doubt, Dylan includes the couplet "Now men from every parish round/ Run after me and roll me on the ground" Not long after, we have Polly birdnesting in Milk Wood with Mr Waldo, with her dress over her head, and then lying in the arms of the "good bad boys from the lonely farms."

Dylan gave only one line ("Me, love.") to Polly in the second half of the play. Yet the part of Polly in the May 14 and subsequent versions of the script was far more prominent, not least because Dylan used Polly to begin and end the second half. He also gave her thirty-five lines of song, and enhanced her role as the object of comments made by other characters, including the two Voices.

The emergence of Polly in the May 14 script as a major role was due in large part to the way in which Dylan responded to the American actors who were rehearsing the parts. In an interview in 1967, two of the actors, Sada Thompson and Nancy Wickwire, make clear that the development of the Polly Garter role took place between May 8, the date of the first rehearsal, and the first performance on May 14. The role was expanded largely because of the way Wickwire played it during the rehearsals. Thompson recalls that:

"He seemed to respond so excitedly to us - it was really wonderful for all of us...he told us that he was going to develop a number of the characters further as he went along, but he claimed at any rate that he developed a number of them because of hearing them read...I think he thought of Polly Garter as a relatively minor role, a charming role, but he really fell in love with Nancy's version of Polly and expanded it. And there were some other characters, too, that were fulfilled in the latter part of the play in perhaps quite a different way than if he'd just gone at it as a literary work entirely and hadn't heard it read by actors...certain choices were made to expand certain characters because he enjoyed the way actors were reading them." [iii]

Dylan did not provide Polly with so many lines of song because he admired Wickwire's voice. On the contrary:

"When we got to the part of the script where it says 'Polly scrubs,' I think it says, 'and sings.' there was a long thing written and I said 'Do you want me to sing?' and he said 'Yes.' And I said 'Well, what's the tune?' And he said 'Make something up.' So I said 'Right now?' He said 'No, next rehearsal.' So I guess it was the next day or whenever it was. I don't write songs; I don't know how to write songs, but I made something up which is rather reminiscent, I think, of 'Mary had a little lamb'...and he loved it. So he said 'Keep it.'"

After the May 14 performance, Dylan made one final revision of Polly Garter. This was to expand the "Me, Polly Garter..." first half monologue, which had consisted of only three lines.

Now that Polly had an established position in the second half, Dylan seems to have felt the need to give her a bigger introduction in the first half, as the interview with Wickwire and Thompson confirms:

"...when we did it six months later, there were certain additions; he added certain things of Polly Garter...in the 'Me' section of the very beginning he wanted to introduce her, and so that was added."

Dylan handled this introduction by removing any doubt about the ascendancy of the "naughty Polly" over the maternal, and this is the passage that we know today:

"Me, Polly Garter, under the washing line, giving the

breast in the garden to my bonny new baby. Nothing

grows in our garden, only washing. And babies.

And where's their fathers live, my love? Over the

hills and far away. You're looking up at me now. I

know what you're thinking, you poor little milky

creature. You're thinking, you're no better than you

should be, Polly, and that's good enough for me.

Oh, isn't life a terrible thing, thank God?"

Interestingly, the work sheets of this monologue, now in the Texas archive, suggest that the loss of the maternal Polly was something that Dylan had struggled with. The drafts contain a number of unused lines about the "naughty Polly", but there are even more lines in which Polly talks lovingly to her children. Moreover, the eight children are given names - Molly, Mary, Winnie, Flo, Mildred, Millicent, Ernie and Sidney. Had these lines been used, their overall effect would have been to strengthen the image of the maternal Polly.

Llareggub and its Milk Wood are places of love and loving, of both sex and fertility. The fecundity of its people are brought home to us through Polly's children and Mr Waldo's paternity summonses. The text is also awash with general references to babies, twins and children; we also find quite specific references to "babies singing opera", or "the snuggeries of babies". We have, particularly in the second half of the play, the prominence of the children's voices and their singing.

The details and imagery of fertility are re-enforced by further references to milk, buttermilk, milking cows, milk churns, milk cans, milk pails, dew-adulterated milk and even milk stout. The Third Boy runs home "howling for his milky mum", Polly describes her baby as a "milky creature", and Mae Rose Cottage goes "young and milking". Nature, too, gets its share of milky references, including "that milkmaid whispering water" and Spring "with its breasts full of rivering May-milk". And who, asks the Fourth Drowned, "milks the cows in Maesgwyn?" [iv]

Maesgwyn Farm: A Fertile Snuggery

New Quay's Maesgwyn stood on Brongwyn Lane, on the left-hand side in the descent to the beach. At one time, the lane went most of the way to Majoda, and it was one of Dylan's routes into the Black Lion - today it is part of the Dylan Thomas Trail that runs through Ceredigion and ends in New Quay.

'Maesgwyn' means 'white or blessed field'. The white, two-storied farmhouse faced north towards Majoda. Its stone outbuildings were also whitewashed, and for most of the year white geraniums grew in pots along the window-sills and in the yard. There was also a large and distinctive white stone marking the entrance to the farm, with a white wall surrounding the front garden, which was, as we shall see, usually full of washing and babies.

Sometime in the early 1900s, a woman called Sarah Evans moved into Maesgwyn. She had come to New Quay from the Rhondda, travelling in a horse and cart with her furniture piled in behind her. For the first few years, Sarah ran the Sailor's Home Arms (later, the Commercial) and then went to Maesgwyn with her husband, Evan Evans.

The farm sold milk to the residents of upper New Quay, who also used its seafields to air and beat their rugs, and to play football in. Secluded and leafy Brongwyn Lane was a favourite walk both for locals and visitors alike. One of Evan and Sarah's great-grandchildren remembers being told about one particular visitor calling for milk:

"...my great-grandmother sold milk because she had a drawer in a chest - in an old family chest of drawers - that my mother called the Milk Drawer and the milk money used to go in there, and it stood in the hallway of Maesgwyn...my mother said that Dylan Thomas had a mug of milk at Maesgwyn but when that was I don't know as Dylan visited New Quay before 1945."

Maesgwyn also had babies galore, a veritable seaside snuggery. Two of Sarah's children came with her from the Rhondda: Thomas John Evans (b.1877) and Hannah Jane Thomas (b.1890). Hannah lived in Maesgwyn and had eight children. Thomas and his wife, also a Sarah, lived on the slope behind Maesgwyn in a house called Tanyfron, and they had six children. Another of Evan and Sarah's children, Mary Ann (b. 1876) married William Dare and had ten children. Although Mary Ann and William lived in Port Talbot, some of the children were born in Maesgwyn, and at least one, Blodwen, came to live there as a child.

As the Maesgwyn families grew larger, the parents and children moved out into other parts of New Quay. When Evan died in 1932, Sarah went to live in Rock Street, with her grand-daughter, Blodwen Dare. She died there in 1937, and a newspaper report of her funeral notes that she had five children, twenty-nine grandchildren and sixteen great-grandchildren.[v]

Thomas and Sarah moved into Maesgwyn in 1934, and carried on the farming. They were there in 1939, as the Register of Electors confirms. A grand-daughter remembers going there for tea in the early years of the War. Then Thomas and Sarah went to Llanarth in 1941 where they both died within a year. It is not clear if anyone moved into Maesgwyn after them, but it is unlikely because the sea was getting closer and closer.

By the time that Dylan first came to New Quay in the 1930s, most of Evan and Sarah's many grandchildren were young adults, and having babies themselves. Maesgwyn itself had become embedded in local folklore, partly because of its babies, and partly because of the threat posed by the encroaching sea.

Some of the six children of Thomas and Sarah Evans also helped to establish Maesgwyn in the folk culture of New Quay. Their eldest son was famously named Oliver Cromwell, two other sons went to Australia and one of them was murdered there by a fellow lumberjack. But it was Thomas and Sarah's eldest daughter, Phoebe, who was one of the town's real characters, and is still remembered affectionately in New Quay today. She was well-known to locals and visitors alike:

"She was quite chuffed to have known Dylan, she was always talking about him. She was adamant she was Polly Garter."

"Mam was proud of being Polly Garter. She said Dylan always had his little notebook, and he was writing all the time when he was having a drink."

            "Phoebe was great friends with Caitlin."

"She used to babysit for them."

Phoebe is mentioned in the Botteghe Oscure draft of Under Milk Wood, giving her name to one of the boats that tilt and ride in the dab-filled sea: "the Arethusa, the Curlew and the Skylark, Phoebe and Sally and Mary Ann, Zanzibar, Rhiannon, the Rover, the Cormorant, and the Star of Wales..." She also appears in Quite Early One Morning, Dylan's radio broadcast about New Quay:

            "Do you hear that whistling? - It's me, I am Phoebe,

The maid at the King's Head, and I am whistling like a bird.

Someone spilt a tin of pepper in the tea.

There's twenty for breakfast and I'm not going to say a word."

Phoebe as a young woman  (the Evans family)

There is no King's Head in New Quay, but Phoebe helped out as a general maid in the Penwig Hotel. Polly was a cleaner and scrubbed the steps of Llareggub's Welfare Hall; Phoebe, too, was a cleaner, "doing" for the sea captains and summer visitors, as well as cleaning Lloyds Bank and Towyn chapel. Dylan's cast list describes Polly as a midwife; Phoebe Evans had considerable experience of pregnancy and birth and she was often called upon to act as an unofficial midwife, her advice valued on difficult births and, later, difficult children. Like Polly, she brought praise for the Lord that the Welsh are a musical nation: "Oh, she could sing beautifully. She sang in the Hall at concerts, and in Towyn. At parties and functions, hymns often, duets with her son…people were always asking her to sing." Above all, Phoebe, like Polly, loved children and she may well have contributed to Dylan's conception of the mothering Polly Garter, written well before the naughty Polly appeared in the script in 1953.

After her marriage to Stanley Evans in 1922, Phoebe followed on in the Maesgwyn tradition and had nine children between 1923 and 1943. Phoebe and Stanley also brought up two of their grandchildren, and looked after other children in the wider Evans family in New Quay. Phoebe also earned extra money by babysitting:

"Phoebe was a motherly figure, very, very child-orientated. She always had children around her. Always."

"She just loved feeding children, and they didn't have two pennies to rub together. How the hell they managed to feed everyone - three cooked meals a day."

"She was like a honey pot - the children were always coming home to her. A wonderful mother."

"She really was well-loved, and really well-loved by her family...full of fun, always happy, always smiling, sparkling."

"I don't think she could have had a life without kids."

"If there'd been enough room, Mam would have filled the house with kids."

"A motherly figure, always in her apron, always doing something and then you'd see her out, and I can hear her walking - she went trit-trot, trit-trot, trit-trot. She was a small, dainty sort of person and I could hear the little footsteps coming."

"My mother was the most sacrificing, loving person I have ever known. I would never betray her trust, I know what they sacrificed. As a young adult, home was a special thing. I couldn't wait to get there. I never wanted to be anywhere else."

And when Phoebe went out with Stanley, "she dressed like a Queen, all bangles and rings. She really believed in dressing up." They preferred New Quay's quiet pubs and the Star of Wales in Aberaeron:

Up until the day she died, she was always wanting to go out. She loved people around her, she loved talking."

"She was a very strong character. She always attracted a crowd, she was never on her own. Funny thing, she attracted young men. I don't know how she did it! She had this magic. They used to listen to her, she always had a story to tell. She'd mix with the young and old. She could mix with anybody."

"Everybody was enthralled by her because she had that wonderful social personality that would come out. She was quite captivating."

"There was something about her that was different, and Dylan would have noticed that and liked it."

During the War years, Phoebe and Stanley lived within nappy throwing distance of Maesgwyn, in a small cottage called Gwynfa behind the police station. Stanley was away for much of the War, but returned on leave and sometimes had a pint with Dylan in the Black Lion. Like Dylan he had a passion for Westerns, and also wrote poetry, later having his verses published in the Cambrian News. Phoebe drank with Caitlin in the Dolau and with Dylan in the Commercial. She also knew Augustus John, who asked if he could paint her eldest daughter, Ray:

"He had had his eye on Ray for a while. She was just fifteen, and he asked if he could paint her. But Phoebe knew Augustus socially and she wouldn't have anything to do with it because she knew his reputation."

Phoebe, 1970s     (the Evans family)

Phoebe continued throughout her life to befriend visiting celebrities such as the actors Rex Harrison and Paul Schofield - "She always wanted to be an actress, but in those days it wasn't the done thing." In New Quay, Phoebe became a legend in her own lifetime. She was a popular figure about the town, always willing to help out, despite the great demands on her time from her own family:

"She was a lovely person, always smiling and laughing, great fun. She was so loveable - and loyal."

"If anybody wanted any help, she'd give it. She wouldn't say 'No'. She couldn't say 'No.'"

"She never looked for the bad in people, she was one of the kinder people."

Phoebe was a devout chapel-goer, and played a full part in the life of the community. In her later years, she joined the Women's Institute and the British Legion and worked hard to raise money for the New Quay lifeboat. Just before her death in 1980, one of her children gave her a copy of Under Milk Wood inscribed "To Mam (The Polly Garter)", an affectionate acknowledgement of the part she surely played in Dylan's conception of the maternal, child-loving Polly.

David N. Thomas                      

 This paper first appeared in Dylan Remembered 1935-1953,                                                             vol 2, Seren 2004

Acknowledgements

It was a great pleasure to work with some of the children and grandchildren of Phoebe and Stanley Evans. Special thanks to Bunny, and also to Irena, Iris, Pamela and Martin who gave me such a warm welcome and much information. I was also helped by several New Quay families who remembered Phoebe with great affection. I am grateful to Beryl Richards for access to her notes and photographs, and for helping me with details of the family tree and the history of Maesgwyn.

Notes 

The Colin Edwards archive of interviews is in the National Library of Wales. For more on the Colin Edwards interviews, see Dylan Remembered, 2 volumes, ed. David N. Thomas. Seren 2003, 2004. 

[i] The children's song, "Polly, Love", was deleted for the May 14 New York performance, at the insistence of the producer, Elizabeth Reitell. It was never re-instated. Dylan also deleted "Nothing grows in our garden 'cept washing and babies." These two deletions are significant because they diminish the portrayal of Polly as a mother and lover of babies.

[ii] I am grateful to Walford Davies for the information about the changes and to Robert Williams for that about Bill MacAlpine and Harry Locke.

[iii] NET Festival series interviews, Edwards archive, NLW.

[iv] Some of these references to babies and milk appear in the script given to the BBC in 1950, but many more, particularly the children's voices and singing, were added between April and October 1953, most when Dylan was in America preparing for the first full reading on May 14th.

[v] Cambrian News, May 7 1937. Interestingly, the Maesgwyn family were twice related through marriage to Thomas Davies, who was the tenant farmer at Plas Gelli, Talsarn, at the time that Dylan and Caitlin were staying there between 1941 and 1943.