Dylan Thomas: Family Life

In 1938, as she and Dylan settled in to life at Sea View in Laugharne, Caitlin fell pregnant. Dylan described it as "a very nice mistake, and neither of us was worried at all".

Caitlin gave birth in January 1939 to their first child, a boy, in Poole, Dorset. They named him Llewelyn, and Dylan described him as "a fat, round, bald, loud child with and spread nose and blue saucer eyes".

The following year the couple left their home in Laugharne, and stayed with their parents in turn before settling at writer and critic John Davenport's house in Gloucestershire, at which a number of other writers, artists and musicians were also staying. However, Caitlin had an affair with another guest, William Glock, which distressed Dylan greatly. Although it didn't cause any lasting damage to the marriage, he realised then that his marriage wasn't as stable as he may have thought.

Both Dylan and Caitlin had affairs throughout their marriage, and each resented the other's while excusing their own behaviour. Caitlin later remarked to the biographer Paul Ferris that the best things Dylan left her were the children, whose looks and characters were reminders of how the man was. She also said, "Only a miracle had saved them from being someone else's. God had seen to it".

In March 1943 the couple's daughter, Aeronwy, was born in London. She was named after the River Aeron, which flows through Cardiganshire.

Six years later, when the Thomas family had settled in Laugharne in 1949, Caitlin was expecting their third child. Colm Garan Thomas was born that July.