Description

Dylan and Me. In 1959-60 I had escaped from teaching in Battersea to work at Better Books in Charing Cross Road near Mooney’s at Cambridge Circus and the ‘French Pub’ in Old Compton Street. Here Ken Fyfe, the manager, drank, he told us, in the company of Brendan Behan and Dylan Thomas.

On Saturday afternoons he entertained, with Vouvray and cheesecake, friends and customers, who ranged from students and teachers at Saint Martin’s, Chelsea and the Central School, to the new poets, writers, playwrights, typographers, designers and architects of that time.

The admirable Ken, with the permission of the owner, the also admirable Tony Godwin, who wanted us educated, let us take books home. We had to leave their jackets with him, not get biscuit crumbs in them and that was when I first read Dylan Thomas.

When I came to live in Swansea, I didn’t know anyone but my father’s uncle had lived in two rooms in Mount Pleasant and my grandfather had been the schoolmaster
at Llangasty Tallyllyn. That was almost enough to give me a sense of belonging but when I heard that Dylan
Thomas had lived here – ‘if it’s good enough for Dylan, it’s good enough for me’, I thought and Portia, Wordsworth and Milton added more reassurance.

Dylan, the snowman, looked up from the High Street and saw the snow-white roofs of Milton Terrace and Watkin Street. I went and checked; he could only have seen theroofs of Milton Terrace.
So I contrived an impossible view of the joggled white roofs of his picture and also gave the lovely sweep of the
roads, and the Renaissance facades of Watkin Street their proper place in his vision.

Rosy Ind was assistant to designers Robin & Lucienne Day, to architects Alison & Peter Smithson, tutor at The Open University and the Cambridge University architecture studios. Her monograph ‘Emberton’ was publishedby Scholar Press. She is currently preparing illustrations for her study of ‘Athens’ Village Houses’.