Dylan Thomas

Dylan Thomas was born in Swansea and worked in London as a journalist writing radio and film scripts at the same time. One of his most famous radio plays, Under Milk Wood, has been adapted for the stage and performed all over the world. It creates the atmosphere of a typical Welsh village by the magical use of words and characters. Much of his working life was spent in such a village, Laugharne near Swansea on the South Wales coast. After a very troubled career, held back by his drinking, he died an early death in New York at the age of 39. The power of his poetry lies in its music and use of striking images.

One of his most famous poems begins with the lines below, which he wrote sitting beside the bed of his dying father:

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day,

Rage, rage against the dying of the night ...

Susan Sheerin, Jonathan Seath, Gillian White: Spotlight on Britain; Oxford University Press, 1985, page 96