87-518: James Arnold Horowitz (June 10, 1925 – June 19, 2015), better known as James Salter , his pen name and later-adopted legal name , was an American novelist and short-story writer . Originally a career officer and pilot in the United States Air Force , he resigned from the military in 1957 following the successful publication of his first novel, The Hunters . After a brief career in film writing and film directing, in 1979 Salter published
174-470: A MiG-15 victory on July 4, 1952. Horowitz subsequently was stationed in Germany and France, promoted to major, and assigned to lead an aerial demonstration team; he became a squadron operations officer, in line to become a squadron commander. Inspired by Under Milk Wood , in his off-duty time he wrote his first novel, The Hunters , publishing it in 1956 under the pen name "James Salter". The film rights to
261-529: A given name and a surname . The order varies according to culture and country. There are also country-by-country differences on changes of legal names by marriage. (See married name .) Most countries require by law the registration of a name for newborn children, and some can refuse registration of "undesirable" names. Some people legally change their name to be different from their birth name. Reasons for doing so include: The Civil Code of Quebec states that "Every person exercises his civil rights under
348-422: A name change to be recorded at marriage . The legal name may need to be used on various government issued documents (e.g., a court order). The term is also used when an individual changes their name, typically after reaching a certain legal age (usually eighteen or over, though it can be as low as fourteen in several European nations). A person's legal name typically is the same as their personal name , comprising
435-608: A "veritable storehouse of phrases, rhythms and details later resurrected or modified for Under Milk Wood ." For example, the "done-by-hand water colours" of Quite Early One Morning appear later as the "watercolours done by hand" of Under Milk Wood . Another striking example from the 1945 broadcast is Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard who later appears as a major character in Under Milk Wood : Mrs Ogmore Davies and Mrs Pritchard-Jones both lived on Church Street in New Quay. Mrs Pritchard-Jones
522-456: A 1959 television programme about the town, can be found here. There were many milestones on the road to Llareggub, and these have been detailed by Professor Walford Davies in his Introduction to the definitive edition of Under Milk Wood . The most important of these was Quite Early One Morning , Thomas' description of a walk around New Quay, broadcast by the BBC in 1945, and described by Davies as
609-465: A Pastime ) as "succinct" and "compressed". Salter often used short sentences and sentence fragments, switching between first and third persons, as well as between the present and past tenses. His dialogue is attributed only when necessary to keep clear who is speaking, otherwise he allows the reader to draw inferences from tone and motivation. His 1997 memoir Burning the Days uses this prose style to chronicle
696-539: A book entitled Life Is Meals: A Food Lover's Book of Days , in 2006. Salter took up film writing, first as a writer of independent documentary films, winning a prize at the Venice Film Festival in collaboration with television writer Lane Slate ( Team, Team, Team ). He also wrote for Hollywood, although disdainful of it. His last script, commissioned and then rejected by Robert Redford , became his novel, Solo Faces . A writer of modern American fiction, Salter
783-587: A cross-country navigation flight in May 1945, his flight became scattered and, low on fuel, he mistook a railroad trestle for a runway, crash-landing his T-6 Texan training craft into a house in Great Barrington, Massachusetts . Possibly as a result, he was assigned to multi-engine training in B-25s until February 1946. He received his first unit assignment with the 6th Troop Carrier Squadron , stationed at Nielson Field ,
870-462: A double g is not used in written Welsh . The name Llareggub was first used by Thomas in two short stories published in 1936. They were The Orchards ("This was a story more terrible than the stories of the reverend madmen in the Black Book of Llareggub.") and The Burning Baby ("Death took hold of his sister's legs as she walked through the calf-high heather up the hill... She was to him as ugly as
957-634: A group of Welsh writers should prepare a verse-report of their "own particular town, village, or district." In May 1938, the Thomas family moved to Laugharne , a small town on the estuary of the river Tâf in Carmarthenshire , Wales. They lived there intermittently for just under two years until July 1941. They did not return to live there until 1949. The author Richard Hughes , who lived in Laugharne, has recalled that Thomas spoke to him in 1939 about writing
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#17330848767791044-610: A large extent. Apart from possibly adopting the partner's name upon marriage, German citizens may only change their name for a recognised important reason. Among other reasons, a change of names is permitted when the name can give rise to confusion, ridicule, unusual orthographic difficulties, or stigmatization. In certain situations, children's last names may also be changed to their natural, foster or adoptive parent's last name. Transgender people may change their first names. Foreign names in writing systems that are not based on Latin are transliterated according to rules which may conflict with
1131-461: A play about Laugharne in which the townsfolk would play themselves, an idea pioneered on the radio by Cornish villagers in the 1930s. Four years later, in 1943, Thomas again met Hughes, and this time outlined a play about a Welsh village certified as 'mad' by government inspectors. Hughes believed that when Thomas "came to write Under Milk Wood , he did not use actual Laugharne characters." Nevertheless, some elements of Laugharne are discernible in
1218-472: A play about a Welsh town: He read it to Nell and me in our bungalow at Caswell around the old Dover stove, with the paraffin lamps lit at night ... the story was then called Llareggub, which was a mythical village in South Wales, a typical village, with terraced houses with one ty bach to about five cottages and the various characters coming out and emptying the slops and exchanging greetings and so on; that
1305-481: A prolonged coughing attack. ... The coughing was nothing new but it seemed worse than before." She also noted that the blackouts that Thomas was experiencing were "a constant source of comment" amongst his Laugharne friends. Thomas gave readings of the play in Porthcawl and Tenby , before travelling to London to catch his plane to New York for another tour, including three readings of Under Milk Wood . He stayed with
1392-403: A punishing schedule of four rehearsals and two performances of Under Milk Wood in just five days, as well as two sessions of revising the play. After the first performance on 24 October, Thomas was close to collapse, standing in his dressing room, clinging to the back of a chair. The play, he said, "has taken the life out of me for now." At the next performance, the actors realised that Thomas
1479-429: A radio play there, as his letters home make clear. Several words and phrases that appear in Under Milk Wood can be found in some of Thomas' letters from the island of Elba , where he stayed for three weeks. The "fishers and miners" and "webfooted waterboys" of the letters become the "fishers" and "webfoot cocklewomen" of the first page of Under Milk Wood . The "sunblack" and "fly-black" adjectives of Elba anticipate
1566-406: A seaside town...with a steep street running down to the harbour." The various topographical references in the play to the 'top of the town,' and to its 'top and sea-end' are also suggestive of New Quay, as are Llareggub's terraced streets and hill of windows. The play is true to even the minor topographical details of New Quay. For example, Llareggub's lazy fishermen walk uphill from the harbour to
1653-529: A solo reading of the first half on 3 May at the Fogg Museum, Harvard , sponsored by The Poets' Theatre, where the audience responded enthusiastically. Rehearsals for the play's official premiere on 14 May in New York City had already started but with only half the play, and with Thomas unavailable as he left to carry out a series of poetry readings and other engagements. He was up at dawn on 14 May to work on
1740-634: A spouse/partner assumes the other spouse/partner's surname upon marriage or civil partnership, or reverts to their original name upon separation, divorce or dissolution of the civil partnership. Only one change of name is allowed in the register where a person has not yet reached the age of 16, and afterwards only one change of forename and three changes of surname may be granted during a person's lifetime, provided that at least five years have passed between changes of surname. Name changes may also be recorded where: Anyone born or adopted in Northern Ireland
1827-441: Is a 1954 radio drama by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas . The BBC commissioned the play, which was later adapted for the stage. The first public reading was in New York City in 1953. A film version of the same name , directed by Andrew Sinclair , was released in 1972. A second adaptation of the play, directed by Pip Broughton , was staged for television in 2014 for the 60th anniversary of the piece. An omniscient narrator invites
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#17330848767791914-523: Is able to change their name with the General Register Office of Northern Ireland in the following circumstances: A deed poll can also be used in Northern Ireland for this purpose. Most states in the United States follow the common law which permits name changing for non-fraudulent purposes. This is actually the most common method, since most women who marry do not petition a court under
2001-481: Is considered to be the inspiration for "Lord Cut-Glass … that lordly fish-head nibbler … in his fish-slimy kitchen ... [who] scampers from clock to clock". Third Drowned's question at the beginning of the play, "How's the tenors in Dowlais?", reflects the special relationship that once existed between New Quay and Dowlais , an industrial town in South Wales. Its workers traditionally holidayed in New Quay and often sang on
2088-576: Is fantasy. Many characters in Salter's short stories and novels reflect his passion for European culture and, in particular, for France, which he describes as a "secular holy land". Critic Jeffrey Meyers describes Salter's style as located between “the lush romanticism of Scott Fitzgerald and the stoic realism of Ernest Hemingway ”. In interviews with his biographer, William Dowie, Salter described his enthusiasm for Isaac Babel , André Gide and Thomas Wolfe . He once described his own writing (in A Sport and
2175-708: Is such a thing as a " legal " surname, it is easily changed. In the words of A dictionary of American and English law , "Any one may take on himself whatever surname or as many surnames as he pleases, without statutory licence". This does not always seem to have applied to names given in baptism . As noted by Sir Edward Coke in Institutes of the Lawes of England , "a man may have divers names at divers times, but not divers Christian names." But in modern practice all names are freely changeable. Changes of name are usually effected through deed poll , optionally enrolled either at
2262-455: Is the name that identifies a person for legal, administrative and other official purposes. A person's legal birth name generally is the name of the person that was given for the purpose of registration of the birth and which then appears on a birth certificate (see birth name ), but may change subsequently. Most jurisdictions require the use of a legal name for all legal and administrative purposes, and some jurisdictions permit or require
2349-488: Is true that most writers have only one story in them.... Then again, it is also true that it is the writer's obligation to make the story tell more the third or fourth time around than it did the first. For this reviewer, Salter's work fails on this score. In his eighties he is telling the story almost exactly as he told it in his forties." She also wrote that he was "so out of touch with the life we are actually living". General Specific Legal name A legal name
2436-494: The Washington Post is reported to have said that with a single sentence, he could break one's heart. In an introduction to the final interview he gave before his death, Guernica described Salter as having "a good claim to being the greatest living American novelist". Writer Vivian Gornick had an altogether different take on his most recent writing. In her review of All That Is for Bookforum , she wrote "Certainly, it
2523-650: The BBC producer, Philip Burton , in the Café Royal in London, where he outlined his ideas for " The Village of the Mad …a coastal town in south Wales which was on trial because they felt it was a disaster to have a community living in that way… For instance, the organist in the choir in the church played with only the dog to listen to him…A man and a woman were in love with each other but they never met… they wrote to each other every day…And he had
2610-639: The Corps of Engineers with both Army and Army Reserve . The elder Horowitz attained the rank of colonel and was a recipient of the Legion of Merit . Horowitz grew up in Manhattan, where he attended P.S.6, and the Horace Mann School – his classmates included Julian Beck . While he intended to study at Stanford University or MIT , he entered West Point on July 15, 1942, at the urging of his father – who had rejoined
2697-832: The Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas. In the fall of 2014 Salter became the first Kapnick Writer-in-Residence at the University of Virginia . He died on June 19, 2015, in Sag Harbor, New York . His friend and fellow author, the Pulitzer Prize -winner Richard Ford , said, "It is an article of faith among readers of fiction that James Salter writes American sentences better than anybody writing today," in his Introduction to Light Years for Penguin Modern Classics. Michael Dirda of
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2784-760: The High Court of Justice or at the College of Arms , with a notice recorded in The London Gazette . Changes may also be made by means of a Royal Licence obtained through the College of Arms, with similar notice. These enrolment, licence and notice procedures are useful for having the new name appear in official documents; these procedures are therefore less likely to be useful for trans people or victims of abuse. Scots law allows anyone who wishes to do so to change their forename(s) or surname and such changes may be recorded in
2871-613: The Korean War . He arrived in Korea in February 1952 after transition training in the F-86 Sabre with the 75th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron at Presque Isle Air Force Base , Maine . He was assigned to the 335th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, 4th Fighter-Interceptor Wing , a renowned MiG -hunting unit. He flew more than 100 combat missions between February 12 and August 6, 1952, and was credited with
2958-671: The "crowblack" and "bible-black" descriptions of Llareggub. The play's Fourth Drowned, Alfred Pomeroy Jones, "died of blisters", and so, almost, did Thomas, as he vividly describes in a letter home. And, in time, the island's "blister-biting blimp-blue bakehouse sea" would re-appear as Llareggub's "slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea." On their return from Italy in August 1947, the Thomases moved to South Leigh , near Witney in Oxfordshire, where Thomas declared his intent to work further on
3045-478: The 36th Fighter-Day Wing at Bitburg Air Base , Germany, between 1954 and 1957. An extensively-revised version of the novel was reissued in 2000 as Cassada . Salter however, later disdained both of his "Air Force" novels as products of youth "not meriting much attention". After several years in the Air Force Reserve , he severed his military connection completely in 1961 by resigning his commission after his unit
3132-751: The Corps of Engineers in July 1941, in anticipation of war breaking out. (With others from his original Class of 1919, George Horowitz was called back to West Point after a month of duty to complete a post-graduate officer's course.) Like his father, Horowitz's time at West Point was shortened due to wartime class sizes being greatly increased and the curriculum drastically shortened. He graduated in 1945 after just three years, ranked 49th in general merit in his class of 852. He completed flight training during his first class year, with primary flight training at Pine Bluff, Arkansas , and advanced training at Stewart Field , New York . On
3219-489: The Korean War. Although an excellent adaptation by Hollywood standards, it was very different from the original novel, which dealt with the slow self-destruction of a 31-year-old fighter pilot, who had once been thought a "hot shot" but who found only frustration in his first combat experience while others around him achieved glory, some of it perhaps invented. His 1961 novel The Arm of Flesh drew on his experiences flying with
3306-689: The Philippines; Naha Air Base , Okinawa ; and Tachikawa Air Base , Japan. He was promoted to 1st lieutenant in January 1947. Horowitz was transferred in September 1947 to Hickam AFB , Hawaii, then entered post-graduate studies at Georgetown University in August 1948, receiving his master's degree in January 1950. He was assigned to the headquarters of Tactical Air Command at Langley AFB , Virginia , in March 1950, where he remained until volunteering for assignment in
3393-520: The Sailors' Arms. Thomas drew a sketch map of the fictional town, which is now held by the National Library of Wales and can be viewed online. The Dylan Thomas scholar, James Davies, has written that "Thomas's drawing of Llareggub is... based on New Quay" and there has been very little disagreement, if any, with this view. An examination of the sketch has revealed some interesting features: Thomas uses
3480-549: The Welsh Merchant Mariners Index. It shows that New Quay and Ferryside provide by far the best fit with Llareggub's occupational profile. Thomas is reported to have commented that Under Milk Wood was developed in response to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima , as a way of reasserting the evidence of beauty in the world. It is also thought that the play was a response by Thomas both to the Nazi concentration camps, and to
3567-458: The actors as they were preparing to go on stage. Thomas subsequently added some 40 new lines to the second half for the play's next reading in New York on 28 May. On his return to Laugharne, Thomas worked in a desultory fashion on Under Milk Wood throughout the summer. His daughter, Aeronwy, noticed that his health had "visibly deteriorated. ... I could hear his racking cough. Every morning he had
James Salter - Misplaced Pages Continue
3654-450: The audience to listen to the dreams and innermost thoughts of the inhabitants of the fictional small Welsh fishing town, Llareggub, ( buggerall spelt backwards). They include Mrs. Ogmore-Pritchard, relentlessly nagging her two dead husbands; Captain Cat, reliving his seafaring times; the two Mrs. Dai Breads; Organ Morgan, obsessed with his music; and Polly Garter, pining for her dead lover. Later,
3741-436: The clippered seas, as First Voice puts it. They have been to San Francisco, Nantucket and more, bringing back coconuts and parrots for their families. The Rev. Eli Jenkins' White Book of Llareggub has a chapter on shipping and another on industry, all of which reflect New Quay's history of both producing master mariners and building ocean-going ships, including schooners. In his 1947 visit to New Quay, Walter Wilkinson noted that
3828-471: The comedian Harry Locke , and worked on the play, re-writing parts of the first half, and writing Eli Jenkins' sunset poem and Waldo's chimney sweep song for the second half. Locke noticed that Thomas was very chesty, with "terrible" coughing fits that made him go purple in the face. On 15 October 1953, Thomas delivered another draft of the play to the BBC , a draft that his producer, Douglas Cleverdon, described as being in "an extremely disordered state...it
3915-521: The ducks of Horsepool Road ("Duck Lane") and the drowning of the girl who went in search of them. Both Laugharne and Llareggub have a castle, and, like Laugharne, Llareggub is on an estuary ("boat-bobbing river and sea"), with cockles, cocklers and Cockle Row. Laugharne also provides the clock tower of Myfanwy Price's dreams, as well as Salt House Farm which may have inspired the name of Llareggub's Salt Lake Farm. Llareggub's Butcher Beynon almost certainly draws on butcher and publican Carl Eynon, though he
4002-489: The early hours of 5 November and died in hospital on 9 November 1953. The sources for the play have generated intense debate. Thomas himself declared on two occasions that his play was based on Laugharne, but this has not gone unquestioned. The towns of Llansteffan , Ferryside and particularly New Quay also have made their claims. An examination of these respective claims was published in 2004. Surprisingly little scholarship has been devoted to Thomas and Laugharne, and about
4089-500: The editor of Botteghe Oscure to explain why he hadn't been able to "finish the second half of my piece for you." He had failed shamefully, he said, to add to "my lonely half of a looney maybe-play". Thomas gave a reading of the unfinished play to students at Cardiff University in March 1953. He travelled to the United States in April to give the first public readings of the play, even though he had not yet written its second half. He gave
4176-533: The first half within a few months; then his inspiration seemed to fail him when he left New Quay." One of Thomas' closest friends and confidantes, Ivy Williams of Brown's Hotel, Laugharne, has said "Of course, it wasn't really written in Laugharne at all. It was written in New Quay, most of it." The writer and puppeteer, Walter Wilkinson , visited New Quay in 1947, and his essay on the town captures its character and atmosphere as Thomas would have found it two years earlier. Photos of New Quay in Thomas' day, as well as
4263-431: The first version of his radio play Under Milk Wood ". She mentions that he talked about the organist who played to goats and sheep, as well as a baker with two wives. Another at the party remembered that Thomas also talked about the two Voices. The testimony from Prague, when taken with that of Burton about the meeting in the Café Royal in 1947, indicates that several of the characters of the play were already in place by
4350-423: The idea that the narrator should be like the listener, blind.…" Burton's friendship with Thomas, and his influence on the play, has been set within the context of the work done by Burton and T. Rowland Hughes in developing community portraiture on the radio. Thomas went to Prague in March 1949 for a writers' conference. His guide and interpreter, Jiřina Hauková , has recalled that, at a party, Thomas "narrated
4437-558: The impact his experiences at West Point, in the Air Force, and as a celebrity pseudo-expatriate in Europe had on the way he viewed his life-style changes. Although it appears to celebrate numerous episodes of adultery , in fact, Salter is reflecting on what has transpired and the impressions of him it has left, just as does his poignant reminiscence on the death of his daughter. A line from The Hunters expresses these feelings: "They knew nothing of
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#17330848767794524-505: The internment camps that had been created around Britain during World War II. The fictional name Llareggub was derived by reversing the phrase " bugger all ". In some published editions of the play, it is often rendered (contrary to Thomas's own use – see below) as Llaregyb or similar. It is pronounced [ɬaˈrɛɡɪb] . The name bears some resemblance to many actual Welsh place names , which often begin with Llan , meaning church or, more correctly, sanctified enclosure , although
4611-448: The name "No-good", anticipating Nogood Boyo of Under Milk Wood . Thomas's wife, Caitlin, has described the year at Majoda as "one of the most important creative periods of his life...New Quay was just exactly his kind of background, with the ocean in front of him ... and a pub where he felt at home in the evenings." Thomas' biographers have taken a similar view. His time there, recalled Constantine FitzGibbon , his first biographer,
4698-513: The name and registered number of the corporate body and its registered address. The requirements apply to sole traders and partnerships, but there are special provisions for large partnerships where listing all partners would be onerous. The information must be shown on any trading premises where the public have access to trade and in documents such as order forms, receipts and, as of January 2007, corporate websites (to be extended later in 2007 to sole trader websites). In strict English law, if there
4785-540: The name assigned to him and stated in his act of birth," and spouses retain their legal names upon marriage. However, a woman married prior to April 2, 1981 is entitled to use her spouse's name in the exercise of her civil rights, provided that they were doing so at that date. A person's legal name can be changed, upon registration, only under prescribed conditions, and only where the person has been domiciled in Quebec for at least one year. In Germany, names are regulated to
4872-673: The name of an actual New Quay resident, Dan Cherry Jones, for one of the people living in Cockle Street. The Rev. Eli Jenkins is not in the sketch, however, and there are also three characters in the sketch who do not appear in the draft of the play given by Thomas to the BBC in October 1950. Thomas seems to have drawn on New Quay in developing Llareggub's profile as an ocean-going, schooner and harbour town, as he once described it. Captain Cat lives in Schooner House. He and his sailors have sailed
4959-452: The news?" It is this note, together with our knowledge that Thomas knew Jack Lloyd ("an old friend"), that establish the link between Willy Nilly and Lloyd. There were also other New Quay residents in Under Milk Wood . Dai Fred Davies the donkeyman on board the fishing vessel, the Alpha , appears in the play as Tom-Fred the donkeyman. Local builder, Dan Cherry Jones, appears as Cherry Owen in
5046-453: The novel Solo Faces . He won numerous literary awards for his works, including belated recognition of works originally criticized at the time of their publication. On June 10, 1925, Salter was born and named James Arnold Horowitz , the son of Mildred Scheff and George Horowitz. His father was a real estate broker and businessman who had graduated from West Point in November 1918 and served in
5133-559: The novel allowed Salter to leave active duty with the US Air Force in 1957 to write full-time. He also legally changed his name to Salter. Having served twelve years in the US Air Force, the last six as a fighter pilot, Salter found the transition to full-time writer difficult. The 1958 film adaptation , The Hunters starring Robert Mitchum , was honored with acclaim for its powerful performances, moving plot, and realistic portrayal of
5220-784: The official register held by the National Records of Scotland . Technically the Registrar General makes a correction to the entry. A correction can be recorded where a birth has been registered in Scotland, or where a person is the subject in Scotland of an entry in the Adopted Children Register, the Parental Order Register or the Gender Recognition Register. The above formalities are not necessary where
5307-486: The past and its holiness." Salter published a collection of short stories, Dusk and Other Stories in 1988. The collection received the PEN/Faulkner Award , and one of its stories ("Twenty Minutes") became the basis for the 1996 film Boys . He was elected to The American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2000. In 2012, PEN/Faulkner Foundation selected him for the 25th PEN/Malamud Award saying that his works show
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#17330848767795394-404: The person's technically true name. In 1991, a Swedish couple refused to give their newborn a legal name, in protest of existing naming laws. In 1996, they were fined for not registering a name for their child for five years, after they unsuccessfully tried to register the child's name as Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116 , and then as "A". Under Milk Wood Under Milk Wood
5481-575: The pier on summer evenings. Such was the relationship between the two towns that when St Mair's church in Dowlais was demolished in 1963, its bell was given to New Quay's parish church. Other names and features from New Quay in the play include Maesgwyn farm the Sailor's Home Arms, the river Dewi, the quarry, the harbour, Manchester House, the hill of windows and the Downs. The Fourth Drowned's line "Buttermilk and whippets" also comes from New Quay, as does
5568-612: The play was delivered to the BBC in late October 1950. It consisted of thirty-five handwritten pages containing most of the places, people and topography of Llareggub, and which ended with the line "Organ Morgan's at it early…" A shortened version of this first half was published in Botteghe Oscure in May 1952 with the title Llareggub. A Piece for Radio Perhaps . By the end of that year, Thomas had been in Laugharne for just over three years, but his half-play had made little progress since his South Leigh days. On 6 November 1952, he wrote to
5655-417: The play, as Cherry Jones in Thomas' sketch of Llareggub, and as Cherry Jones in one of Thomas' work sheets for the play, where Thomas describes him as a plumber and carpenter. The time-obsessed, "thin-vowelled laird", as Thomas described him, New Quay's reclusive English aristocrat, Alastair Hugh Graham , lover of fish, fishing and cooking, and author of Twenty Different Ways of Cooking New Quay Mackerel ,
5742-406: The play. It was here that he knocked the play into shape, as one biographer described it. There are various accounts of his work on the play at South Leigh, where he lived until May 1949. He also worked on filmscripts here, including The Three Weird Sisters , which includes the familiar Llareggub names of Daddy Waldo and Polly Probert. Just a month or so after moving to South Leigh, Thomas met
5829-460: The play. A girl, age 14, named Rosie Probert ("Rosie Probert, thirty three Duck Lane. Come on up, boys, I'm dead.") was living in Horsepool Road in Laugharne at the 1921 census. Although there is no-one of that name in Laugharne in the 1939 War Register, nor anyone named Rosie, Laugharne resident, Jane Dark, has described how she told Thomas about her. Dark has also described telling Thomas about
5916-410: The readers "how to work with fire, flame, the laser, all the forces of life at the service of creating sentences that spark and make stories burn". His final novel, All That Is, was published to excellent reviews in 2013. Salter's writings—including correspondence, manuscripts, and heavily revised typescript drafts for all of his published works including short stories and screenplays—are archived at
6003-460: The road." Jack Lloyd, a New Quay postman and the Town Crier, also lived on Church Street. He provided the character of Llareggub's postman Willy Nilly, whose practice of opening letters, and spreading the news, reflects Lloyd's role as Town Crier, as Thomas himself noted on a work sheet for the play: "Nobody minds him opening the letters and acting as [a] kind of town-crier. How else could they know
6090-412: The second half, and he continued writing on the train between Boston and New York, as he travelled to the 92nd Street Y 's Poetry Center for the premiere. With the performance just 90 minutes away, the "final third of the play was still unorganised and but partially written." The play's producer, Liz Reitell, locked Thomas in a room to continue work on the script, the last few lines of which were handed to
6177-399: The statutorily prescribed method, but simply use a new name (typically the husband's, a custom which started under the theory of coverture where a woman lost her identity and most rights when she married). Most state courts have held that a legally assumed name (i.e., for a non-fraudulent purpose) is a legal name and usable as their true name, though assumed names are often not considered
6264-516: The stopped clock in the bar of the Sailors' Arms. Walford Davies has concluded that New Quay "was crucial in supplementing the gallery of characters Thomas had to hand for writing Under Milk Wood . FitzGibbon had come to a similar conclusion many years earlier, noting that Llareggub "resembles New Quay more closely [than Laugharne] and many of the characters derive from that seaside village in Cardiganshire..." John Ackerman has also suggested that
6351-421: The story of the drowned village and graveyard of Llanina, that lay in the sea below Majoda, "is the literal truth that inspired the imaginative and poetic truth" of Under Milk Wood . Another part of that literal truth were the 60 acres of cliff between New Quay and Majoda, including Maesgwyn farm, that collapsed into the sea in the early 1940s. In April 1947, Thomas and family went to Italy. He intended to write
6438-462: The system of transcribing or transliterating names that is used in the country of origin. Former titles of nobility became integrated into the last names in 1919 but continue to be adapted according to gender and other circumstances. In the UK, businesses that trade under names other than those of the owner or a corporate entity must display the name of owner and an address at which documents may be served, or
6525-511: The time Thomas had moved to the Boat House in Laugharne in May 1949: the organist, the two lovers who never met but wrote to each other, the baker with two wives, the blind narrator and the Voices. The first known sighting of a script for the play was its first half, titled The Town that was Mad , which Thomas showed to the poet Allen Curnow in October 1949 at the Boat House. A draft first half of
6612-499: The town "abounds" in sea captains The following year, another writer visiting New Quay noted that there were "dozens of lads who knew intimately the life and ways of all the great maritime cities of the world." Llareggub's occupational profile as a town of seafarers, fishermen, cockle gatherers and farmers has also been examined through an analysis of the returns in the 1939 War Register for New Quay, Laugharne, Ferryside and Llansteffan. This analysis also draws upon census returns and
6699-570: The town awakens, and, aware now of how their feelings affect whatever they do, we watch them go about their daily business. In 1931, the 17-year-old Thomas created a piece for the Swansea Grammar School magazine that included a conversation of Milk Wood stylings, between Mussolini and Wife, similar to those between Mrs. Ogmore-Pritchard and her two husbands that would later be found in Under Milk Wood . In 1933, Thomas talked at length with his mentor and friend, Bert Trick, about creating
6786-413: The town's influence on the writing of Under Milk Wood . Thomas's four years at the Boat House were amongst his least productive, and he was away for much of the time. As his daughter, Aeronwy, has recalled, "he sought any pretext to escape." Douglas Cleverdon has suggested that the topography of Llareggub "is based not so much on Laugharne, which lies on the mouth of an estuary, but rather on New Quay,
6873-616: Was "a second flowering, a period of fertility that recalls the earliest days … [with a] great outpouring of poems", as well as a good deal of other material. Biographer Paul Ferris agreed: "On the grounds of output, the bungalow deserves a plaque of its own." Thomas' third biographer, George Tremlett , concurred, describing the time in New Quay as "one of the most creative periods of Thomas's life." Some of those who knew him well, including FitzGibbon, have said that Thomas began writing Under Milk Wood in New Quay. The play's first producer, Douglas Cleverdon , agreed, noting that Thomas "wrote
6960-510: Was at the fourth and was shocked by Thomas' appearance: "I could barely stop myself from gasping aloud. His face was lime-white, his lips loose and twisted, his eyes dulled, gelid, and sunk in his head." Through the following week, Thomas continued to work on the script for the version that was to appear in Mademoiselle , and for the performance in Chicago on 13 November. However, he collapsed in
7047-565: Was called up to active duty for the Berlin Crisis . He moved back to New York with his family. Salter and his first wife Ann divorced in 1975, having had four children: daughters Allan (1955-1980) and Nina (born 1957), and twin sons Claude and James (born 1962). Starting in 1976 he lived with journalist and playwright Kay Eldredge. They had a son, Theo Salter, born in 1985, and Salter and Eldredge married in Paris in 1998. Eldredge and Salter co-authored
7134-461: Was clearly not in its final form." On his arrival in New York on 20 October 1953, Thomas added a further 38 lines to the second half, for the two performances on 24 and 25 October. Thomas had been met at the airport by Liz Reitell, who was shocked at his appearance: "He was very ill when he got here." Thomas's agent John Brinnin , deeply in debt and desperate for money, also knew Thomas was very ill, but did not cancel or curtail his programme. He had
7221-421: Was constantly cleaning, recalled one of her neighbours, "a real matron-type, very strait-laced, house-proud, ran the house like a hospital ward." In her book on New Quay, Mrs Pritchard-Jones' daughter notes that her mother had been a Queen's Nurse before her marriage and afterwards "devoted much of her time to cleaning and dusting our home ... sliding a small mat under our feet so we would not bring in any dirt from
7308-427: Was critical of his own work, having said that only his 1967 novel A Sport and a Pastime comes close to living up to his standards. Set in post-war France, A Sport and a Pastime is a piece of erotica involving an American student and a young Frenchwoman, told as flashbacks in the present tense by an unnamed narrator who barely knows the student, also yearns for the woman, and freely admits that most of his narration
7395-637: Was not in Laugharne but in nearby St Clears. In September 1944, the Thomas family moved to a bungalow called Majoda on the cliffs outside New Quay , Cardiganshire ( Ceredigion ), Wales, and left in July the following year. Thomas had previously visited New Quay whilst living in nearby Talsarn in 1942–1943, and had an aunt and cousins living in New Quay. He had written a New Quay pub poem, Sooner than you can water milk , in 1943, which has several words and ideas that would later re-appear in Under Milk Wood . Thomas' bawdy letter-poem from New Quay to T. W. Earp, written just days after moving into Majoda, contains
7482-407: Was the germ of the idea which ... developed into Under Milk Wood . In February 1937, Thomas outlined his plans for a Welsh Journey, following a route that would "be decided by what incidents arose, what people told me stories, what pleasant or unpleasant or curious things...I encountered in the little-known villages among the lesser-known people." A year later, in March 1938, Thomas suggested that
7569-455: Was very ill and had lost his voice: "He was desperately ill … we didn't think that he would be able to do the last performance because he was so ill … Dylan literally couldn't speak he was so ill … still my greatest memory of it is that he had no voice." After a cortisone injection, he recovered sufficiently to go on stage. The play's cast noticed Thomas's worsening illness during the first three rehearsals, during one of which he collapsed. Brinnin
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