AV News 195 - February 2014
The next day we set off for Laugharne near Carmarthen. We stayed at the
recently refurbished Brown's Hotel where Dylan used to drink, and toasted his
memory in the very bar that Dylan used to frequent. We felt that we were really
reliving Dylan's Wales by being at the locations that were so much a part of his
life. Just after he married Caitlin, a friend of Dylan let them stay in his house
adjacent to Laugharne Castle. The Castle's gazebo provided an ideal room in
which Dylan could write, influenced by the changing views of the Taf Estuary.
The extracts from his work are spoken in the sequence from the "Heron priested
shore" to the "Sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea". The
latter quote is taken from the opening of ‘Under Milk Wood’, the former from
‘Poem in October’ written on his 30th birthday. We wanted to have the effect of
a changing view out of the window in the gazebo, which was achieved in
PhotoShop.
Edgar used the same window, but cut out the view from the original window
using layers, and placed a darker image of the estuary behind this, with the
window and its surround also darkened. In the sequence the view out of the
gazebo's window changes to reflect the poetry being spoken.
After a spell in London helping with the war effort, Dylan eventually returned
to Laugharne to the Boathouse, bought for him by one of his admirers. There's
some speculation she was his lover, as Dylan and his wife Caitlin had quite an
open marriage. We were able to visit the Boathouse, and the opening scene in
the AV is through one of the windows out onto the estuary, however access to
Dylan's Writing Shed (a converted garage on the cliff above the Boathouse) was
not possible, unless you were prepared to pay a fee of £40.
Edgar asked the member of
staff to clean the observation
window, hoping that as the
member of staff opened the old )