{"id":24058,"date":"2023-03-09T16:18:11","date_gmt":"2023-03-09T15:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbccountryfile\/?post_type=purple_issue&p=24058"},"modified":"2023-03-09T16:18:11","modified_gmt":"2023-03-09T15:18:11","slug":"a-walk-in-milk-wood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbccountryfile\/2023\/03\/09\/a-walk-in-milk-wood\/","title":{"rendered":"A walk in Milk Wood"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Writer Dylan Thomas and broadcaster Cerys <\/strong>Matthews <\/strong>grew up looking at the same view of Swansea Bay and share a love of nature and landscape \u2013 now Cerys has brought one of his most famous works to life for a new, younger audience <\/p>\n\n

By Margaret Bartlett <\/p>\n\n

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Listen to Cerys Matthews presenting weekly music programmes, focusing on the blues on BBC Radio 2, Monday evenings; the award-winning Add to Playlist on BBC Radio 4 on Fridays; and on Sunday mornings on BBC Radio 6 \u2013 the most listened to digital radio show in the UK<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n
<\/div>
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Hear the recordings <\/strong><\/em><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Cerys Matthews unlocks the fascinating recordings of Dylan Thomas\u2019 family and friends made by her uncle Colin Edwards, on BBC Sounds. bbc.co.uk\/sounds\/play\/b04m9z8t<\/a> <\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section>\n\n

Listening to Cerys Matthews, BBC radio broadcaster, musician and author, read from Under Milk Wood <\/em>is thrilling, enlivening and soothing all at the same time. Her eyes sparkle with mischief and the sheer joy of reading aloud as her silken musical voice with its beautiful Welsh lilt compels Dylan Thomas\u2019 characters to leap off the page. <\/p>\n\n

We\u2019re sitting on a bench in London\u2019s Kew Gardens on a blue-sky December day talking about Cerys\u2019 latest book, a retelling of writer Dylan Thomas\u2019s 1954 \u2018play for voices\u2019 Under <\/em>Milk <\/em>Wood <\/em>\u2013 an adaptation for younger readers illustrated in superb detail by artist Kate Evans. We\u2019d been walking and recording for the magazine\u2019s Plodcast, and after chatting about the book and her deep love of the countryside, I was bursting to ask the former singer of 1990s band Catatonia to read aloud these words she knows so intimately. Her lyrical tones transported me to the \u201ccobble, donkey, goose and gooseberry street\u201d of fictional seaside village Llareggub (bugger all backwards). <\/p>\n\n

A GATEWAY TO LLAREGGUB <\/strong><\/h5>\n\n

It took Cerys 10 years to bring this, her fourth book for children, to fruition. After getting the blessing of Thomas\u2019s family, including his granddaughter Hannah Ellis, Cerys created an abridged version \u201cto exist as a gateway for those who are not old enough for the full-fat version\u201d. \u201cThe original is so exceptionally brilliant, but it wasn\u2019t something I could read, as it was, to my very young children,\u201d she explains. \u201cI love books that sound great and are so characterful and books that have such great texts that you bring them along with you during the daytime. That\u2019s where the idea was born really.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n

\n\n

\u201cIt becomes abundantly clear when you distil down the text that this is a love letter to life\u201d <\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

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The play, originally commissioned for radio by the BBC, tells the story of 24 hours in the life of Llareggub\u2019s flawed and complex residents. Kate Evan\u2019s atmospheric illustrations fill in many details found in the original, such as Mrs Cherry Owen\u2019s trotters for feet, the cluttered, chaotic one-room home she shares with drunken Mr Cherry Owen and the layout of Llareggub\u2019s Coronation Street.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got all walks of life in there \u2013 the fun ones, the dreamers. That\u2019s why it\u2019s so brilliant,\u201d adds Cerys. \u201cThen there\u2019s the ones who are so mischievious \u2013 Jack Black, the cobbler, we just don\u2019t know quite what he\u2019s up to. He goes out into the \u2018already sinning dark\u2019 and you see off he walks with his trousers done up with a bit of cobbler\u2019s thread, the bible in his hand\u2026\u201d <\/p>\n\n

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Writer, poet and broadcaster Dylan Thomas (1914\u20131953) grew up in Swansea and lived in many villages along the Welsh coast, finding inspiration in its rugged landscapes<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n

Cerys believes Under <\/em>Milk <\/em>Wood <\/em>has a message of positivity and love at its core. \u201cIt\u2019s about warts and all life and living as a community, and about us all being different and us all being flawed, but ultimately having hope that there is goodness in us all as well. It becomes abundantly clear when you distil down the text that this is a love letter to life, wherever you\u2019re from in the world.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

The play, which Thomas began writing when he was still at school, is shot through with cheeky humour, but also with his love of the natural world and the Welsh landscape: \u201cOh, <\/em>the <\/em>Spring <\/em>whinny <\/em>and <\/em>morning <\/em>moo <\/em>from <\/em>the <\/em>clog <\/em>dancing <\/em>farms, <\/em>the <\/em>gulls\u2019 <\/em>gab <\/em>and <\/em>rabble <\/em>on <\/em>the <\/em>boat-bobbing <\/em>river <\/em>and <\/em>sea <\/em>and <\/em>the <\/em>cockles <\/em>bubbling <\/em>in <\/em>the <\/em>sand, <\/em>scamper <\/em>of <\/em>sanderlings, <\/em>curlew <\/em>cry, <\/em>crow <\/em>caw, <\/em>pigeon <\/em>coo, <\/em>clock <\/em>strike, <\/em>bull <\/em>bellow, <\/em>and <\/em>the <\/em>ragged <\/em>gabble <\/em>of <\/em>the <\/em>beargarden <\/em>school <\/em>as <\/em>the <\/em>women <\/em>scratch <\/em>and <\/em>babble <\/em>in <\/em>Mrs <\/em>Organ <\/em>Morgan\u2019s <\/em>general <\/em>shop\u2026\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the beauty of his writing,\u201d says Cerys, \u201cand being able to read it out loud and put voices to the characters. There are so many elements I love in it. But I love reading full stop; it doesn\u2019t just have to be Thomas. It\u2019s music isn\u2019t it? When you hit writing that you love you just hear it sing.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

And Cerys has created music for his words. For her 2104 album A <\/em>Child\u2019s <\/em>Christmas, <\/em>Poems <\/em>and <\/em>Tiger <\/em>Eggs, <\/em>Cerys composed orchestral music for Thomas\u2019s story, A <\/em>Child\u2019s <\/em>Christmas <\/em>in <\/em>Wales, <\/em>a project that premiered as a Christmas ballet at the Millennium Centre in Cardiff in 2016. It has been performed many times since, including last Christmas at Theatr Clwyd in Mold, North Wales. Produced to mark the centenary of Thomas\u2019 birth, Cerys\u2019 album also put music to his poems And <\/em>Death <\/em>Shall <\/em>Hath <\/em>No <\/em>Dominion <\/em>and Do <\/em>Not <\/em>Go <\/em>Gentle <\/em>into <\/em>That <\/em>Good <\/em>Night, <\/em><\/p>\n\n

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Vibrant watercolours by painter and illustrator Kate Evans bring the world of Llareggub to life<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n
FAMILY STORIES <\/strong><\/h5>\n\n

Perhaps Cerys\u2019s most unique connection to the poet is through her uncle, broadcaster Colin Edwards, who in the 1960s, spent his spare time recording interviews of over 150 people who had known Thomas. \u201cThere was a moment when everyone was turning away from Thomas because of his disrepute, and my uncle wanted to do something about it. My uncle, as a broadcaster living outside of Wales, recognised that he was a huge literary figure and that if nobody took notes and made interviews it would forever be lost who the real Dylan was,\u201d explains Cerys. \u201cSo he interviewed Florence Thomas his mum, Aeronwy the daughter, the sons, the friends, family, the pub owners, the doctor that saw to him in New York [where Thomas died in 1953 aged 39], the editors, the publishers, the patrons, anyone who had anything to do with Dylan my uncle got in touch with and recorded. I had the tapes, the physical tapes \u2013 it\u2019s lovely when it\u2019s one touch away isn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n

Colin Edwards\u2019 tapes are now in the National Library of Wales, available for anyone to hear. <\/p>\n\n

WILD IN WALES <\/strong><\/h5>\n\n

While she grew up in Swansea, looking out on the same crescent bay that Dylan Thomas knew when he was a child, Cerys spent a lot of her childhood holidays on a farm, and her parents instilled a love of the natural world in their kids. \u201cMy mum and dad loved the outdoors. A lot of my family are from West Wales, which is very wild. We had a caravan there and my cousins had a farm there, so when school breaks allowed we\u2019d be in West Wales. That meant picking periwinkles from the rockpools, helping out on the farm with the milking, it was helping calving and with the slurry \u2013 everything. I wanted to be a farmer when I was growing up. It didn\u2019t feel that we were brought up to be city kids so much.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

\"\"
With his wife and three children, Dylan Thomas lived in the boathouse in Laugharne, Carmarthenshire, from 1949 until his death in 1953 <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n

Her love of the outdoors has a huge influence on Cerys\u2019s approach to life and helps her to stay grounded. \u201cThe world makes no sense \u2013 the urbanised, the suburbanised world \u2013 all the information all the injustices and all the moronic things that humans do to each other is very hard to make sense of. So, to walk out, if you can find it still, into relative wilderness and see what the natural world is up to after millions and millions and millions of years of changing, there\u2019s a sense to it that can refill the batteries, for sure.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

Not many DJs will base a three-hour programme on Imbolc \u2013 the ancient Gaelic celebration of the arrival of spring \u2013 or fruit trees, as Cerys has done on her recent BBC Radio 6 Sunday morning shows. \u201cI love plants and nature. In any time off I tend to want to drag the family to mountains and go hiking.\u201d But Cerys\u2019 outings with her blended family of five children and husband, producer Steve Abbott, tend not to be your average rambles. \u201cMy favourite trip was to Everest base camp [in 2019] when my sons were nine and 12 \u2013 it was so astonishing and exceptional.\u201d A winter hike to Ben Nevis followed, then a pilgrimage walk to St Michael\u2019s Mount in Cornwall; Scafell Pike is next on her horizons. \u201cWe all went up Snowdon [Yr Wyddfa] \u2013 I think it was January, it was wet and cold and misty, but we did it. I did have to push one of them up with my head for the last few metres,\u201d she laughs. <\/p>\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got that kind of brain \u2013 I like a challenge. I like pilgrimages and mountains. You start there and go to the top and go down again. It\u2019s a bite-size bit of understandability \u2013 maybe it\u2019s a control thing, a small thing in life you can control.\u201d Whichever challenge Cerys takes on next, you can be sure remarkable words and music will be her companions.<\/p>\n\n

\n\n

Countryfile Plodcast <\/span><\/strong><\/em>
Listen to Margaret\u2019s chat with Cerys Matthews, episode 183 of the BBC Countryfile Magazine <\/em>Plodcast, on all podcast providers. countryfile.com\/podcast<\/a> <\/strong><\/p>\n\n

\n\n
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<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n

Production editor Margaret Bartlett lives in South Wales and enjoys discovering more about Welsh history, language and culture.<\/p>\n\n

<\/div>\n\n

Photos: Getty, Alamy, Mary Evans<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Writer Dylan Thomas and broadcaster Cerys Matthews grew up looking at the same view of Swansea Bay and share a love of nature and landscape \u2013 now Cerys has brought one of his most famous works to life for a new, younger audience 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