From: benlizro@ihug.co.nz   
      
   Launched at Swansea University in 2015.   
   Neither birth- nor death-day, the date is that of the first public   
   performance of _Under Milk Wood_ (1954) at the 92nd Street Y's Poetry   
   Center, New York. Actually that was the day it was finished:   
      
   "He was up at dawn on 14 May to work on the second half, and he   
   continued writing on the train between Boston and New York....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 the actors as they were preparing   
   to go on stage."   
      
   Language point: Why didn't he write in Welsh?   
      
   At the 1921 census, Nancy [his sister] and Dylan are noted as speaking   
   both Welsh and English. Their parents were also bilingual in English and   
   Welsh, and Jack Thomas taught Welsh at evening classes.One of their   
   Swansea relations has recalled that, at home, "Both Auntie Florrie and   
   Uncle Jack always spoke Welsh." ...All four aunts and uncles [with whom   
   he spent much time as a boy] spoke Welsh and English....All these   
   relatives were bilingual, and many worshipped at Smyrna chapel in   
   Llangain where the services were always in Welsh, including Sunday   
   School which Thomas sometimes attended. There is also an account of the   
   young Thomas being taught how to swear in Welsh. His schoolboy friends   
   recalled that "It was all Welsh—and the children played in Welsh...he   
   couldn't speak English when he stopped at Fernhill...in all his   
   surroundings, everybody else spoke Welsh..." At the 1921 census, 95% of   
   residents in the two parishes around Fernhill were Welsh speakers.   
      
   So, plenty of exposure to it in childhood, and must have spoken it at   
   least a bit.   
   BUT he was not educated in it:   
      
   When he wrote to Stephen Spender in 1952, thanking him for a review of   
   his Collected Poems, he added "Oh, & I forgot. I'm not influenced by   
   Welsh bardic poetry. I can't read Welsh."   
      
   also he disliked Welsh nationalism:   
      
   Robert Pocock, a friend from the BBC, recalled "I only once heard Dylan   
   express an opinion on Welsh Nationalism. He used three words. Two of   
   them were Welsh Nationalism."   
      
   and finally:   
      
   Dylan, pronounced ˈ [ˈdəlan] (Dull-an) in Welsh, caused his mother to   
   worry that he might be teased as the "dull one". When he broadcast on   
   Welsh BBC early in his career, he was introduced using this   
   pronunciation. Thomas favoured the Anglicised pronunciation and gave   
   instructions that it should be Dillan /ˈdɪlən/.   
      
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dylan_Thomas   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)