For almost half a century the tiny township of Laugharne has basked in its unchallenged role as real-life inspiration for Llareggub, the fictional setting for Under Milk Wood, and to this day Carmarthenshire proudly promotes itself as 'Dylan Thomas Country'.
Now, with the publication of a new study of the poet, another Thomas - David this time - casts grave doubts on Laugharne's presumptions and makes an impressive case for New Quay in Ceredigion being the prototype for the ever-popular play for voices that originated on radio and progressed via the stage to the cinema.
Hitherto, this picturesque west Wales seaside resort has owed its popularity with holiday visitors more to its resident school of bottlenose dolphins than to the snub-nosed Dylan. All that could be about to end.
Which is why we are with the author in Ffynnon Feddyg, the clifftop home where Jean and Joe Bugeja run a five-star guest house. This is our third call on a Milk Wood trail designed to back up claims in the controversial book. The Bugejas have lived here for five years, and have transformed a run-down thatched cottage into a luxurious Mediterranean-style bungalow with private access to the foreshore and distant views to Plynlimon and beyond to Snowdonia.
They can see terraces of cottages that cling to the hump-backed hill, recalling the poet's reference to Llareggub's 'hill of windows'. They resemble a sketch the poet once drew of his fictional town. 'There are lots of references in the text that I have tied to New Quay,' Thomas explains.
As we sit talking, a sudden squall whirls into the bay, interrupting our view as the scene is drained of all colour and the rows of cottages dissolve until they are no more than blurred geological strata in a monochrome landscape. In the course of this one March day we shall see three rainbows, shelter snugly in Dylan-approved pubs from two hailstone showers, and sun ourselves unseasonably on the sandy beach.
Jean and Joe are surprised to learn of their home's involvement in the Thomas story. They did not know the poet stole daffodil bulbs from the garage, thinking them to be onions.
Fynnon Feddyg (the name means Doctor's Well) was the home of William Killick, a wartime drinking companion of the poet, who played a central role in a dramatic News of the Worldly incident. Killick, a Commando captain who landed in Greece to fight with the partisans, was married to Vera, a friend of the poet since their childhood days in Swansea. In 1944 Dylan and Caitlin Thomas were the couple's nearest neighbours, 100 yards up the lane at Majoda, which was then an asbestos shack whose name was derived from those of its owner's children, Marjorie, John and David.
The following year, Killick returned home on leave to be told by the bank manager that his wife had run up an overdraft, caused, the Commando seems to have concluded, by her generosity to a freeloading draft-dodger and his Bohemian wife. After a scuffle with the poet and some cronies in the Black Lion pub one March night, the serviceman returned to Ffynnon Feddyg in a drunken rage, collected his machine gun and a hand grenade and proceeded to shoot up Majoda with the Thomases inside.
At Lampeter Assizes that June, the war hero was cleared of attempted murder and returned to operational duties. The tale made it into the Sunday scandal sheets and the poet soon ended his sojourn in New Quay.
He had first become acquainted with the area while staying at Plas Llanina, and it was here our walk began. The seventeenth century mansion was rented by Lord Howard de Walden, a rich patron of the arts.
James Maurice, Llanina's present owner, showed us the ruined Apple House, where Thomas wrote. Lanina legends of victims lost in the treacherous waters of Cardigan Bay inspired Captain Cat's confrontation with the long dead seamen at the opening of Under Milk Wood . De Walden had been introduced to the brilliant young poet by painter Augustus John, Caitlin's former lover. The peer stumped up £50 and offered the use of this crumbling building.
A couple of hundred yards down the lane at Majoda, Eunice Chetcuti assured us that the bullet holes had long since been repaired, and little remains of the original structure. 'You can see why it was so inspiring for Dylan,' she says, gesturing to the sweep of the bay as we leave.
From Majoda we trace the poet's daily trek into the hospitable village and its wide array of watering holes. At the junction with the B4342 a right turn takes us past a shanty town view of holiday caravans that the poet would have been spared.
Opposite the entrance to a local lovers' walk that David Thomas believes is Goosegog Lane, where cobbler Jack Black chased the naughty couples, stands a four-square stone building. This was the home of the local bobby and was dubbed by the poet Handcuff House.
In Llareggub (read it backwards for an example of the author's humour), Manchester House was the emporium where draper Mog Edwards pined for Myfanwy Price. New Quay's Manchester House is now a fishing tackle shop, but was a haberdasher's. In a matter of 100 yards David Thomas identifies a chapel and half a dozen other premises and people that appear in Llareggub.
On the brow of the hill stands the Memorial Hall. In Milk Wood Polly Garter scrubbed its steps for the Mothers' Union and provided services of a more intimate nature for their husbands. The landlord of the Seahorse Inn says the identity of the original Polly is common knowledge hereabouts.
According to David Thomas, the inn provided the inspiration for Llareggub's Sailors Arms, where 'the silent sailors flush down their pints'. The pub's original name, he explains, was the Sailors Home Arms.
Not everyone here is happy to bask in reflected bardic glory. One local dignitary declined to attend the inauguration of a memorial stone outside Majoda because, he said, Thomas still owed the family taxi firm money. George Legg recalls that he was always advised by his mother to cross the road to avoid his second cousin, Dylan.
At the Black Lion, further down the helter-skelter hill to the harbour, the proprietor is clearly happy to capitalise on a legend. His Dylan restaurant is a mini-museum of photographs and press cuttings relating to a poet who put the hotel briefly into those newspaper columns.
The identity of the original Captain Cat, the blind narrator of a community's activities, has long intrigued Milk Wood aficionados. My guide has no doubts. Directly across the way from the Black Lion stands Gomer House, once the home of Tom Davies, better known as Tom Polly, a retired master mariner and Dylan drinking companion.
In his endeavour to establish New Quay's Llareggub credentials above those of Laugharne, academic and former researcher David Thomas has tracked down an impressive list of such characters and places that he can tie in with the text. He has even located a farm in the locality with a name that translates into English as Milk Wood.
At the quayside newsagent's, where our informal tour ends, his paperback is already selling faster than pints in the Sailors Arms.
• 'Dylan Thomas, A Farm, Two Mansions and a Bungalow' is published by Seren at £9.95
Fact file
Information
Ceredigion Council: 01970 633063
New Quay Information Centre: 01545 560865
Wales Tourist Board: 02920 499909>
Accomodation
Ffynon Feddyg en-suite B&B, double room £56. Tel: 01545 560222
Black Lion Hotel B&B, double £55. Tel: 01545 560209
Attractions
Cardigan Bay Marine Wildlife Centre (admission free): 01545 560032
Wildlife cruises: 01545 560032
