Llwyngwyn: the American and the woman who was as old as her mother

On September 5 1953, John Brinnin, Dylan’s American agent, left London in a hired Hillman Minx. With him was the photographer, Rollie Mckenna. They were on an assignment for Mademoiselle magazine, which had commissioned them to do a piece on Dylan’s daily life in Laugharne.

Brinnin wrote about the trip in the penultimate chapter of his 1955 book, Dylan Thomas in America. It includes an interesting account of a tour of the Llansteffan peninsula, though it’s characterised by the kind of errors that have led others to question Brinnin’s reliability and truthfulness as a biographer.[i]

After a few days settling in at the Boat House, Dylan, Florence and the two Americans, set off for a tour of the Williams countryside. They headed out along the A40 to Bancyfelin, where Florence’s relatives had once farmed nearby Llwynbrain (http://g.co/maps/ts4f4). Just some fifteen years earlier, in the late 1930s, her cousin, Annie, had killed herself with a pistol in one of the barns on the farm.[ii]

Brinnin turned right to wander southwards through the narrow lanes to the village of Llangynog. If he were making the journey today, he might have used Google maps to find the way (http://g.co/maps/k75hz). But they had something better as their own personal navigator and guide:

“The day was blue, the country still in its midsummer green. Mrs Thomas entertained us with a flow of anecdotes of gentry and yeomanry, called Dylan’s attention to a hundred houses or woodlands or chapels, and seemed altogether delighted in her role of cicerone.”

On the western edge of Llangynog lay Lambstone farm, where Dylan’s great-great grandparents, John and Anna Williams, had lived before moving in the 1820s to Pen-y-coed.

Their next stop was Llanybri; some of Florence's relatives still lived in Plas Isaf in the centre of the village (see https://sites.google.com/site/dylanthomasandtheedgeoflove/ for more on Plas Isaf). Dylan often came here for a pint or two in the Farmers’ Arms.[iii] But it wasn’t beer they were after today. They stopped at the local shop, bought ice creams and chatted to a few of the locals who had recognised Florence. “These are Dylan’s friends,” she told them, “they’ve come all the way from America to see my boy.”

Then it was off to Fernhill (http://g.co/maps/xxwrr). The road from Llanybri took them past the Williams’ founding farm, Pen-y-coed, and then Pencelli-Isaf, where Florence’s mother had been born. Next came Pencelli-Uchaf, which had only just left the Williams family, and then a right-turn towards Llangain to drive along a ridge that looked down on some of the other family farms, such as Pentrewyman and Waunfwlchan.

Arriving at Fernhill, the new owner, as Brinnin described him, came out to greet them. Tom Williams, one of Florence’s cousins by marriage, had taken over the farm in 1929 when Jim and Annie Jones had moved out. He led them through

“a little fine-graveled courtyard and into the house by way of a tiny conservatory roseate with giant geraniums. From the rafters of the dining room great sides of cured bacon hung in neat rows above heavy dark tables and chairs, and a glinting exhibition of blue and white china.”

Dylan took the group on a tour of the rooms. But Brinnin was disappointed, and Dylan saddened, to see that the house where he had stayed as a boy, and described in The Peaches and After the funeral, had changed for the worse - “a few overstuffed pieces of mail-order furniture”, wrote Brinnin sniffily of the interior. Out in the orchard, they picked apples, whilst Dylan told stories about the Fernhill hangman and his drunken uncle, Jim Jones.

Brinnin and his party then drove down to Llansteffan, before heading back towards Llwyngwyn farm (http://g.co/maps/byu63). This was the “ancient homestead” of Dylan’s relatives, said Brinnin colourfully. Thomas Williams, Florence’s first cousin, now farmed Llwyngwyn, following in the footsteps of his brother and father.[iv]

They turned off the main road and went up past Waunffort, Blaencwm and Waunfwlchan. As they drove into the Llwyngwyn entrance, Florence would probably have pointed out Mount Pleasant, where Annie Fernhill had died. Brinnin then took the Hillman carefully uphill along the rutted wagon track to the farm:

“At the top of the rise we turned into a mud-filled farmyard surrounded by big and small buildings stark with new whitewash. A cluster of people, from infants to withered crones, suddenly popped out of half a dozen doors to look at us with curiosity, and then to welcome us.”

The party was welcomed, not by withered crones, but by Thomas and his wife, Mary Ann. Then Thomas took Brinnin, Dylan and Mckenna on a tour of the farm, though Brinnin “could not understand a word of our guide’s English”, and complained about getting his feet wet. They soon returned and joined Florence in the house:

“Inside the bare, scrubbed kitchen with its fireplace big enough for five men to stand abreast in, its hanging sides of bacon, great black iron pots and witches’ brooms, we were given large cups of warm milk out of a pail brought in by a red-faced milkmaid. We drank it, bravely, and were surprised to find we liked it.”

Then they were led into an adjoining room to meet the “matriarch of the family”, Sarah Evans Maesgwyn, who had moved into Llwyngwyn, to be looked after by her brother, Thomas:

“As she sat in the reflected glint of long shelves of heirloom china, her shriveled little body entirely covered in a Spanish profusion of rich black silks, she addressed us with an interest and pleasure that made a kind of benediction...”

The visitors were told, wrote Brinnin, that Sarah “was ninety-six years old, quite deaf and unable to speak a word of English.” In fact, Sarah was eighty-two and spoke English well enough, although she would have undoubtedly preferred to use Welsh. It’s inconceivable that anyone in the family, which had only just celebrated Sarah's birthday, would get their facts so wrong; if she had been ninety-six, she would have been just five years younger than her mother. The problem, yet again, is with Brinnin’s recall. When he was writing his book a year later, he was under the influence of pheno-barbitone, alcohol and benzedrine, as well as various other drugs he took for his long list of ailments. He was also on the edge of a mental breakdown, for which he entered therapy.[v]

Sarah invited them to stay for tea but they declined. They drove back down the lane to Blaencwm, to visit Florence’s unmarried brother, Bob. Once more, Brinnin’s memory lets him down. Florence, he wrote, introduced her brother and said his name was Tom, adding that his wife had died forty years ago, and that she, Florence, came over once a year “to help put things in order.” In fact, Bob was single and, if he had needed help, it would have been after the death in 1946 of his sister, Polly, with whom he had lived all his adult life.[vi]

The return to Laugharne took them once more to Llanybri, where they stopped at Capel Newydd and toured the family graves. Florence paid her respects at one grave after another, “pointing out to Dylan names he had probably forgotten...Dylan followed after his mother silently, listening to her little stories of the dead.” As they returned at dusk to Laugharne, there were more stories. Florence was bright and sprightly, laughing with Dylan “as they recounted old stories the day’s visits had recalled.”

Perhaps without realising it, Brinnin was here making an important point about both Dylan’s upbringing and the influences on his writing: Florence’s stories about the Llansteffan peninsula and her relatives had been part of his life as child, boy and young man.

Notes

[i] Other similar critiques of the book have been produced by, for example, the poet Allen Curnow. In a 1982 article, Curnow has described Brinnin's account of Dylan's Harvard engagements (at which Curnow was present but Brinnin was not) as "false" and his book as a whole as ill-balanced and ill-informed. Calling Brinnin untruthful, Dorothy van Ghent (1956) noted several errors in the text that “seem significant of the probability of more important and damaging falsifications.” LaFlamme (1956) wrote that Brinnin had produced a book that was largely about himself. Dylan moved through it, she wrote, as little more than a shadow of the real man and even that shadow was distorted.

[ii] Annie was Florence’s cousin-in-law, wife of William Thomas, grandson of Sarah and William Thomas of Pen-y-coed. Llwynbrain was also earlier farmed by Sarah’s lovechild, Jane, before she moved to Dishley Court, Leominster (see Thomas 2003, p288). There is a photo of William and Annie in His maternal aunts and uncles on this site.

[iii] For more on Dylan and Llanybri, see Thomas 2003 ch.6.

[iv] The Williamses came to Llwyngwyn about 1886, when Evan and Anne Williams, Thomas’ parents, moved across from Tirbach. Before that, the farm was run by another, unrelated family (1861/1871/1881). Before them, it was farmed (1841/1851) by the Davieses, who were related to Evan Williams' mother, Anne of Waunfwlchan. For more on the Davieses, see Maesgwyn: the servant....., the next page on this site.

Lycett (2003, p358) notes the Brinnin 1953 visit but gets the name wrong, calling the family “the Morrises”. Heulwen Williams did not marry Emrys Morris until 1955.

[v] Sarah had been born on August 11 1871. Her mother, Anne, had been born in 1852 and died in 1924. Sarah’s niece, Heulwen, confirmed for me (2011) that Sarah did indeed speak English, though she was more fluent in Welsh; she is also recorded on the 1891 census as speaking both English and Welsh, as did her parents and her three eldest siblings as well.

For Brinnin’s own account of writing the book, and his use of drugs etc, see Thomas 2008 pp120-123.

[vi] No evidence has emerged that Bob had married. He is recorded as single on the 1911 census, living with his mother and sister, Polly, in Delhi Street, Swansea. He later lived with Polly at Blaencwm from c1929. Brinnin was probably confusing Bob with Tom Williams of Fernhill and/or Tom Williams of Llwyngwyn, whom he had just visited. (Florence did have a brother, Thomas, but he had died in 1938, and well before his wife, and he never lived at Blaencwm.)

References

J. Brinnin (1955) Dylan Thomas in America, Avon

A. Curnow (1982) “Images of Dylan” in the NZ Listener, December 18

D. van Ghent (1956) “A Poet’s Corpse: or Me and Dylan”, Centaur, Spring

G. LaFlamme (1956) “With More Triumphant Faith”, Centuar, Spring

A. Lycett (2003) Dylan Thomas: A New Life, Weidenfeld

D. N. Thomas (2003) Dylan Remembered 1914-1934, vol 1, Seren

(2008) Fatal Neglect: Who Killed Dylan Thomas?, Seren.