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I've been living now for fifteen years or centuries in this timeless, beautiful, barmy town, and though still very much a foreigner I am hardly ever stared at in the streets any more." Dylan Thomas, writing about Laugharne in South Wales.

DYLAN THOMAS REMEMBERED WELL

Those who know Dylan Thomas, through his poetry and prose, through his humour and pathos and uncanny perception of human nature, sometimes come and sit on the rocks below his home at Laugharne. They listen to the waves or watch sea-birds dig for worms, and fancy they hear him reciting his lovely melodious poetry. They've already peered into his tool shed turned studio, and had a cup of tea in his Boat House home. Now it's time to ponder on the complexities of this wild, talented young man, who was so inspired by this view.

Thirty miles west of Swansea, along the southern coast of Wales, Laugharne has changed little in the fifty-odd years since Thomas made it his home. Older citizens still talk freely about Young Dy, who settled here with his wife Caitlin in 1938, in what he fondly referred to as a "small damp fishermen's cottage, where green rot sprouts through the florid scarlet forests of the wallpaper. Sneeze and the chairs crack ..."

IF YOU GO: Laugharne is 30 miles (48 km) west of Swansea via A48 and A40.