Contents сhapter I. Life and career 1Early time 21933–1939 3Wartime, 1939–1945 4Broadcasting years 1945–1949 5American tours, 1950–1953 6Death 7Aftermath chapter II. Poetry 1Poetic style and influences 2Welsh poet 3Critical reception 4Memorials chapter

Wartime, 1939–1945[edit]
In 1939, a collection of 16 poems and seven of the 20 short stories published by Thomas in magazines since 1934, appeared as The Map of Love.^[57] Ten stories in his next book, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog (1940), were based less on lavish fantasy than those in The Map of Love and more on real-life romances featuring himself in Wales.^[11] Sales of both books were poor, resulting in Thomas living on meagre fees from writing and reviewing. At this time he borrowed heavily from friends and acquaintances.^[58] Hounded by creditors, Thomas and his family left Laugharne in July 1940 and moved to the home of critic John Davenport in Marshfield, Gloucestershire.^{[nb 2]} There Thomas collaborated with Davenport on the satire The Death of the King's Canary, though due to fears of libel the work was not published until 1976.^[60][61]
At the outset of the Second World War, Thomas was worried about conscription, and referred to his ailment as "an unreliable lung". Coughing sometimes confined him to bed, and he had a history of bringing up blood and mucus.^[62] After initially seeking employment in a reserved occupation, he managed to be classified Grade III, which meant that he would be among the last to be called up for service.^{[nb 3]} Saddened to see his friends going on active service, he continued drinking and struggled to support his family. He wrote begging letters to random literary figures asking for support, a plan he hoped would provide a long-term regular income.^[11] Thomas supplemented his income by writing scripts for the BBC, which not only gave him additional earnings but also provided evidence that he was engaged in essential war work.^[64]
In February 1941, Swansea was bombed by the Luftwaffe in a "three nights' blitz". Castle Street was one of many streets that suffered badly; rows of shops, including the Kardomah Café, were destroyed. Thomas walked through the bombed-out shell of the town centre with his friend Bert Trick. Upset at the sight, he concluded: "Our Swansea is dead".^[65] Soon after the bombing raids, Thomas wrote a radio play, Return Journey Home, which described the café as being "razed to the snow".^[66] The play was first broadcast on 15 June 1947. The Kardomah Café reopened on Portland Street after the war.^[67]
In five film projects, between 1942 and 1945, the Ministry of Information commissioned Thomas to script a series of documentaries about both urban planning and wartime patriotism, all in partnership with director John Eldridge: Wales: Green Mountain, Black Mountain, New Towns for Old, Fuel for Battle, Our Country and A City Reborn.^[68][69][70]
In May 1941, Thomas and Caitlin left their son with his grandmother at Blashford and moved to London.^[71] Thomas hoped to find employment in the film industry and wrote to the director of the films division of the Ministry of Information (MOI).^[11] After being rebuffed, he found work with Strand Films, providing him with his first regular income since the Daily Post.^[72] Strand produced films for the MOI; Thomas scripted at least five films in 1942, This Is Colour (a history of the British dyeing industry) and New Towns For Old (on post-war reconstruction). These Are The Men (1943) was a more ambitious piece in which Thomas' verse accompanies Leni Riefenstahl's footage of an early Nuremberg Rally.^{[nb 4]} Conquest of a Germ (1944) explored the use of early antibiotics in the fight against pneumonia and tuberculosis. Our Country (1945) was a romantic tour of Britain set to Thomas' poetry.^[74][75]
In early 1943, Thomas began a relationship with Pamela Glendower; one of several affairs he had during his marriage.^[76] The affairs either ran out of steam or were halted after Caitlin discovered his infidelity.^[76] In March 1943, Caitlin gave birth to a daughter, Aeronwy, in London.^[76] They lived in a run-down studio in Chelsea, made up of a single large room with a curtain to separate the kitchen.^[77]
In 1944, with the threat of German flying bombs on London, Thomas moved to the family cottage at Blaen Cwm near Llangain,^[78] where Thomas resumed writing poetry, completing "Holy Spring" and "Vision and Prayer".^[79] In September, Thomas and Caitlin moved to New Quay in Cardiganshire (Ceredigion), which inspired Thomas to pen the radio piece Quite Early One Morning, a sketch for his later work, Under Milk Wood.^[80] Of the poetry written at this time, of note is "Fern Hill", believed to have been started while living in New Quay, but completed at Blaen Cwm in mid-1945.
Although Thomas had previously written for the BBC, it was a minor and intermittent source of income. In 1943, he wrote and recorded a 15-minute talk entitled "Reminiscences of Childhood" for the Welsh BBC. In December 1944, he recorded Quite Early One Morning (produced by Aneirin Talfan Davies, again for the Welsh BBC) but when Davies offered it for national broadcast BBC London turned it down.^[80] On 31 August 1945, the BBC Home Service broadcast Quite Early One Morning, and in the three years beginning in October 1945, Thomas made over a hundred broadcasts for the corporation.^[82] Thomas was employed not only for his poetry readings, but for discussions and critiques.^[83][84]
By late September 1945, the Thomases had left Wales and were living with various friends in London.^[85] The publication of Deaths and Entrances in 1946 was a turning point for Thomas. Poet and critic Walter J. Turner commented in The Spectator, "This book alone, in my opinion, ranks him as a major poet".^[86]
In the second half of 1945, Thomas began reading for the BBC Radio programme, Book of Verse, broadcast weekly to the Far East.^[87] This provided Thomas with a regular income and brought him into contact with Louis MacNeice, a congenial drinking companion whose advice Thomas cherished.^[88] On 29 September 1946, the BBC began transmitting the Third Programme, a high-culture network which provided opportunities for Thomas.^[89] He appeared in the play Comus for the Third Programme, the day after the network launched, and his rich, sonorous voice led to character parts, including the lead in Aeschylus' Agamemnon and Satan in an adaptation of Paradise Lost.^[88][90] Thomas remained a popular guest on radio talk shows for the BBC, who regarded him as "useful should a younger generation poet be needed".^[91] He had an uneasy relationship with BBC management and a staff job was never an option, with drinking cited as the problem.^[92] Despite this, Thomas became a familiar radio voice and within Britain was "in every sense a celebrity".^[93]
Thomas visited the home of historian A. J. P. Taylor in Disley. Although Taylor disliked him intensely, he stayed for a month, drinking "on a monumental scale", up to 15 or 20 pints of beer a day. In late 1946, Thomas turned up at the Taylors' again, this time homeless and with Caitlin. Margaret Taylor let them take up residence in the garden summerhouse.^[94] After a three-month holiday in Italy, Thomas and family moved, in September 1947, into the Manor House in South Leigh, just west of Oxford. He continued with his work for the BBC, completed a number of film scripts and worked further on his ideas for Under Milk Wood. In May 1949, Thomas and his family moved to his final home, the Boat House at Laugharne, purchased for him at a cost of £2,500 in April 1949 by Margaret Taylor.^[95] Thomas acquired a garage a hundred yards from the house on a cliff ledge which he turned into his writing shed, and where he wrote several of his most acclaimed poems.^[96] Just before moving into there, Thomas rented "Pelican House" opposite his regular drinking den, Brown's Hotel, for his parents^[97][98] who lived there from 1949 until 1953. It was there that his father died and the funeral was held.^[99] Caitlin gave birth to their third child, a boy named Colm Garan Hart, on 25 July 1949.^[100]