Club contact: Andrew Grant
andygrantrwg@yahoo.co.uk

                                     November 2024 – update

At November’s meeting we had Chris Johns who is a member of the Pontypool Probus Club

Chris Johns “Dylan Thomas”

Chris gave a brief history of Dylan who was born in Swansea in 1914 and died in New York City in 1953 widely being known as a drunk. His famous portrait by Augustus John painted in 1936 was shown. Although his parents were bilingual Dylan could not speak Welsh which was unusual for a Welsh poet, his father was a senior master teaching English in the Swansea Grammar School school which he also attended. At school he rated English as his favourite subject and left in 1931 with no exams to join the South Wales Daily Post and at this point he started drinking. In 1934 his first poems included “And death shall have no dominion” and this and others started to attract the attention in the literary world. In 1936 he married Caitlin and had 3 children but the marriage was doomed with extramarital affairs and violence by both partners. His list of works is well known but his life was not to be envied in many respects with an early death at the age of 49.

 Please contact me for any further information at the e-mail address above or on 02920252422.

Although our membership is growing, we still have room for new people and I would be glad to hear from any interested parties. We meet on the second Thursday of each month at the Llanishen Golf Club in Cardiff at 10am for coffee before starting the meeting proper at 10.30am. Lunch is available at the club and the great majority of the members stay for this excellent value meal.

Please note the e-mail address above is not hyperlinked so please enter my address manually.

Andrew Grant (Secretary)