His Pontardulais aunts and uncles

In Dylan's day, Pontardulais (the Bont) was a small, industrial town whose main industries were tin-plate and coal. The settlement lay stretched out along the A48, the main route from Swansea to Carmarthen. Dylan travelled through the Bont many times, on his way to visit family in Carmarthenshire. On one visit, he described the towns he had passed through in the bus:

"each town a festering sore on the body of a dead country, half a mile of main street with its Prudential, its Co-op, its Star, its cinema and pub. On the pavements I saw nothing but hideously pretty young girls with cheap berets....thin youths with caps and stained fingers...little colliers, diseased in mind and body as only the Welsh can be, standing in groups outside the Welfare Hall.” [i]

This was far from the poet Edward Thomas’ affectionate description of the Bont some thirty years earlier, but it is quintessentially the town of the 1930s and 1940s. It did have half a mile of main street, St Teilo Street, which boasted not one but two Co-ops, the Star grocery shop, the Tivoli cinema and a handsome Mechanics’ Institute. [ii]

Dylan had several relatives in the Bont, all but one of whom were on his mother's side, descended from the Llansteffan/ Llangain Williamses. In the 1860s, William Proper Williams, a son of Daniel and Harriet Williams of Waunffort cottage, just down the road from Dylan's maternal family at Waunfwlchan, left to search for work in the east of the country. He started off as a grocer in Aberkenfig. Ten years later he was on the railways in the Bont, working his way up to platform foreman, an important job on such a busy station.

William and his wife Mary had seven children, three of whom lived in the Bont. These were Edward Daniel, Alfred Hayden and William David. A fuller account is given at https://sites.google.com/site/dylanthomaspontardulais/dylan-and-the-bont, with the family tree of the Bont Williamses given in full in Note 28. The following is just a segment:

In 1921, Alfred Hayden Williams married his Ferryside cousin, Mary Hannah (Bal) daughter of David and Amy Jones of Ferryside. Dylan's mother, Florence, was thus a blood cousin to both Alf and Bal.

Alf and Bal, who had a son Allan, ran a decorating shop on St Teilo Street, Pontardulais. For more on Bal, see His Ferryside aunts and uncles on this site. For more on Alf, Bal and Allan, see

https://sites.google.com/site/dylanthomaspontardulais/home

The Pontardulais aunt who came from his father's side was Minnie Olive Bowen (nee Greville), who lived on the Fforest in the Bont - see His paternal aunts and uncles on this site

Notes

[i] Letter to Pamela Hansford Johnson, late October 1933.

[ii] Edward Thomas on the Bont: in Beautiful Wales, 1905, and quoted in a helpful National Library article at

http://www.users.ic24.net/~terrynorm/edward thomas.htm. Edward Thomas frequently stayed in and around the Bont, where his relatives lived at 17, Woodville Street. His close friendship with the distinguished theologian and poet John Jenkins (Gwili) of the Hendy also brought him to the area. For more on Edward Thomas and the Bont, see R. G. Thomas (1987).

References

D. John and D. N. Thomas (2010) From Fountain to River: Dylan Thomas and the Bont, Cambria, autumn. Also at https://sites.google.com/site/dylanthomaspontardulais/home/dylan-and-the-bont

Gwyn Griffiths, http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/southwest/sites/pontarddulais/pages/history_2.shtml

R. G. Thomas (1987) Edward Thomas: A Portrait, Oxford