Dylan Thomas: Early years

Dylan Thomas' father - David John Thomas, known to all as DJ - was born in 1876 in Johnstown village near Carmarthen. He was awarded a scholarship to study English at the University of Aberystwyth, where he was awarded a first class degree.

A quiet, strong willed man, DJ harboured ambitions to be a poet. His failure to become one would be a source of regret throughout his life, but he settled instead for a job teaching English at Swansea Grammar School.

He married Florence Hannah Williams in December 1903. She had been born in Swansea in 1882 into a large, close-knit family. Indeed, her six brothers and sisters would play significant roles in the life of the young Dylan. A seamstress by trade, Florence was a fun-loving and sociable woman.

Dylan Marlais Thomas was born at around 11pm on 27 October 1914 in a bedroom of 5 Cwmdonkin Drive, a newly built semi-detached house his parents had bought earlier that year. The name Dylan was at the time relatively uncommon - his father took it from the Mabinogion. Marlais had been the name adopted by Dylan's great uncle, the well known preacher-poet Gwilym Marles Thomas.

The family - DJ, Florence, the young Dylan and his sister Nancy, eight years his elder - lived in the Uplands suburb of Swansea. It was a respectable area overlooking Swansea bay and the town. A maid helped out with the housework - a sure sign of the Thomases' upward mobility, although the family's finances were often unstable.

Dylan Thomas' parents were both speakers of the Welsh language and had strong links to Welsh cultures and customs, but brought up their children to speak only English. This was a carefully made decision: Uplands was a largely Anglicised area, and many other children born to Welsh speakers in the area were likewise brought up to speak only in English.

Indeed, both Nancy and Dylan were sent to elocution lessons, to which the poet later attributed his 'cut-glass' accent.

As a boy, Dylan almost exclusively knew the western suburbs of Swansea, particularly Cwmdonkin Drive and the nearby Cwmdonkin Park. But his childhood summers were mostly spent at Florence's sister Ann's dairy farm in Carmarthenshire. These holidays would later inspire the poem Fern Hill, published in 1946.

In 1925, just before his 11th birthday, Dylan began attending Swansea Grammar School, where his father had been teaching for two decades. DJ was in charge of the school magazine, and his son immediately began submitting material for publication. It was a matter of weeks before his first poem was published.