start of trail

A Soldier Comes Home

At the start of the Second World War Dylan was, as usual, struggling for money to live. His most recently published book of poetry and prose "The Map of Love" (published August 1939) and his semi-autobiographical collection of short stories "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog" (published April 1940) had both been totally eclipsed by World events, and sales were few.

In May 1940 Dylan had failed his Army medical at Llandeilo, Carmarthenshire, having been graded C3.Writing to his father Dylan told him "If I could pray, I'd pray for peace.I'm not a man of action, and the brutal activities of war appal me," adding to another letter, this time addressed to the Ministry of Information (MOI) whilst requesting a writing job "my great horror's Killing".
Dylan was in London in September 1940, on the weekend the blitz started.He was meeting Donald Taylor, boss of Strand Films, the largest documentary film making organization under contract to the MOI. For the rest of the war Dylan was to earn his living contributing variously as producer, director, compiler, deviser, and voice over narrator in these information providing, morale raising, propaganda films.It was the "reserved occupation" which he had sought, and to which he was best suited, "my war work" as he later referred to it. Subjects ranged from recruitment films "Ballon site 568", to coal production promotion "Wales-Green Mountain, Black Mountain" and "Fuel for Britain", to social unity and morale boosters "Our Country", "A City Re-born" (about the blitzed city of Coventry), and "These are the men" a savage attack against Hitler and his Nazi hencemen.
Dylan was at that time experimenting with production techniques to see how he could meld poetry and cinema.

Dylan also scripted a short film which addressed the psychological readjustments faced when men returned from active service, entitled "A Soldier Comes Home".

That March in 1945 William Killick, a 28 year old Captain in the Royal Engineers, returned, on leave, to his wife Vera, who was living next door to Dylan and Caitlin.The two couples were good friends, Dylan and Vera knew each other from their Swansea childhoods and Dylan had been best man at their wedding.Vera had been helping the Thomases as a friend, sharing baby sitting duties, and by using her husbands army pay to supplement their meagre income.

William had experienced the sharp end of the war, having been involved in Commando operations behind enemy lines, fighting in the SOE in Greece.The arguments in the Towns pubs involving Dylan and William on the night of 6th March 1945 have been well documented.David N THomas has in "A Farm, Two Mansiosn and a
Bungalow" provided an in depth description of the relationships and events involved.This was followed by the 2008 film by John Maybury "The Edge of Love", filmed at New Quay and the surrounding area, starring Matthew Rhys, Sienna Miller and Kiera Knightley.The film depicts the relationships, the subsequent shooting incident at Majoda, and the attempted murder trial that followed.

There can not perhaps have been a more stark and devastating example of how reality bites.