Drinking with Dylan Thomas
GettyThe favourite bars of Dylan Thomas
Celebrate the centenary of the Welsh poet by downing a pint or two in one of his most-frequented watering holes around the world. By Laura Fowler.
Dylan Thomas would be 100 next year, in October 2014. True to form, he did Not Go Gentle into That Good Night, as he wrote, but after several days of heavy drinking in New York City, at the age of 39.
To celebrate the life and centenary of the Welsh-born poet, there's a year of events taking place in the UK from this October to next. Memorials, tours, performances and so on (visit www.dylanthomas100.org for more information), mainly in Wales, but also in London, where he lived for some years.
But to get a feel for his life, admirers might prefer to visit the places where he spent time: his birthday walk along the coast in Carmarthenshire, the one that inspired Poem for October, for example; or in the nooks and snugs of many bars and pubs around the world.
Dylan Thomas could vie with Ernest Hemingway for the number of drinking establishments claiming him as a patron. Here are a few that can claim to be his favourites, where he bantered, brawled, fell in love and played shove ha'penny, from Mousehole to Manhattan, where one can remember him in true spirit.
Rex FeaturesDylan Thomas's favourite Swansea pubs
1. SWANSEA, SOUTH WALES
It was in Swansea's Uplands Tavern (01792 458242), at a tender age, that Dylan Thomas got a taste for booze.
'I liked the taste of beer,' he said, 'its live white lather, its brass-bright depths, the sudden world through the wet brown walls of the glass, the tilted rush to the lips and the slow swallowing down to the lapping belly, the salt on the tongue, the foam at the corners.'
Ah, Swansea. No shortage of pubs in which to hone the art of drinking. There is a string of pubs on the seafront that has become known as the Mumbles Mile, which few get to the end of. The 1930s Antelope was perilously close to the Swansea Little Theatre (now the Dylan Thomas Theatre, the picturesque building in the bottom right of the picture above), where Thomas was part of an amateur dramatics group. When rehearsals bored him he would skip down to the Antelope - something that happened so often that the director sacked him.
The Antelope is between owners right now, but there are still enough pubs along the Mumbles Mile to mis-spend an afternoon in Swansea.
Rex FeaturesThe Wheatsheaf, Fitrovia
2. THE WHEATSHEAF, FITZROVIA
Dylan Thomas fell in love at first sight in The Wheatsheaf on Rathbone Place. She was a chorus girl, Caitlin Macnamara, and the daughter of a poet: fiery, feisty, with the alcohol-tolerance of a navvy. They were drunk, of course, and he laid his bleary head on her lap and proposed, and a year later they did get married.
George Orwell and Anthony Burgess drank in The Wheatsheaf too; and it is still a great pub for writers (the editors of The Chap magazine hold their salons here, now as The New Sheridan Club), and for drinkers.
The Wheatsheaf, 25 Rathbone Place, Fitzrovia, West End, London W1 (020 7580 1585)
Matt BuckMousehole, Cornwall
3. THE SHIP INN, MOUSEHOLE
Dylan and Caitlin Thomas married in Penzance in 1937 - their third attempt, having twice drunk their wedding fund. They honeymooned in Mousehole - 'quite the loveliest village in England', wrote Thomas - where they stayed at the Lobster Pot hotel and restaurant on the harbour, and the nearby Ship Inn (the grey stone building overlooking the beach) became their honeymoon boozer of choice.
Part of the bar, Dylan's Corner, remains dedicated to the poet; while upstairs are eight newly salubrious rooms decorated in breezy, beach-hut style.
The Ship Inn, South Cliff, Mousehole, Cornwall (01736 731234; www.shipinnmousehole.co.uk). Doubles from £75.
AlamyThe Black Lion Hotel, New Quay, West Wales
4. THE BLACK LION, NEW QUAY
Dylan Thomas spent the winter of 1944 in New Quay on Cardigan Bay, West Wales. He wrote 'Quite Early One Morning' here, and several more poems besides; and New Quay has claims to being the village of Llareggub in 'Under Milk Wood' (Captain Cat lived in Gomer House, on the seafront). Things all ended rather sourly after a late and boozy brawl at The Black Lion, when the Thomases' cottage was consequently shot at by an inebriated and furious Captain Killick with the family inside it.
The Black Lion was his favourite of the town's numerous watering holes (his wife, Caitlin, preferred The Dolau Inn). On the harbourside, the inn has been restored and now has nine decent rooms to stay in; book one with views out over Cardigan Bay through long sash windows.
The Black Lion Hotel, New Quay, Ceredigion, West Wales (01545 561144; www.blacklionnewquay.co.uk). Doubles from £70.
GettyDylan Thomas's favourite pub
5. BROWN'S HOTEL, LAUGHARNE
In the later years of their marriage, Dylan and Caitlin and their children moved to the seaside village of Laugharne, in Carmarthenshire, not far from Tenby. They lived in the Boathouse, where Thomas had his Writing Shed - a converted garage on the water's edge - with a desk that looked out to sea.
Life in Laugharne was more inspiration for Under Milk Wood; and 'Poem in October' is about a walk Thomas took on his birthday, over Sir John's Hill (see the Birthday Walk route here: www.dylanthomas100.org). Another walk, the Dylan Thomas Trail (route here) goes around the places he frequented around town on his old-lady bicycle.
Perhaps the place he and Caitlin frequented most frequently of all was Brown's Hotel, his favourite drinking hole in Laugharne - and perhaps in the world. The Grade II-listed inn reopened in summer 2012 with tastefully decorated rooms to stay in upstairs, and a new bar, sympathetically restored and updated.
Brown's Hotel, 123 Carew Drive, Laugharne, Carmarthenshire, South-west Wales (www.browns-hotel.co.uk). From £90 a night.
Pictured: Dylan and Caitlin Thomas in the bar of Brown's Hotel, Laugharne
AlamyThe White Horse Tavern, New York
6. THE WHITE HORSE TAVERN, MANHATTAN
In Greenwich Village, the 19th-century White Horse Tavern was the dingy salon of writers and artists, bohemians and beats of the 1950s and 1960s. Hunter S Thompson, Allen Ginsberg, Norman Mailer, Jim Morrison, Bob Dylan all drank here; Jack Kerouac got kicked out more than once. But before them all came Dylan Thomas. On one of his New York visits, in the winter of 1953, he drank until 4am, a record 18 whiskies (or so he boasted; the barman scoffed that it was half that), and died the same day.
The White Horse Tavern, 567 Hudson Street and 11th Street, Manhattan, New York City (00 1 212 243 9260)