Remembering Andi

 

Our friend in poetry, Andi Langford-Woods died in August. To be more precise, on August 12th, my grandmother's death day, and yes, Hilda would have had the kettle on ready for Andi when she arrived. 

I've attended several celebrations of Andi since then, the first being at Silver Street Poetry and Open Mic at the end of August, where several of us read poems in her honour. I chose 'Selkie' from 'Wain', Rachel Plummer's brilliant, LGBT-themed retellings of Scottish folk tales. 

Here's Jeremy Toombs, reading his poem 'Saint of Wandering Poets, Singers, Musicians and Other Vagabonds', which he also read at Andi's funeral on Michaelmas Day (which happens to be my mother's death day).  

Below are my impressions of the funeral, which I wrote down to read at Andi's memorial, three weeks later.

The memorial, at the Greenbank in Easton, was a night full of love, startling synchronicity, and Tunnock's tea cakes. 

Andi's backgammon board

Hazel

Tom

Julian, and memories of Acoustic Night Bristol

Dom and Seb

Jane

David on his Jew's Harp

Person whose name escapes me but who read one of my favourite poems, 'Jenny Kiss'd Me' by Leigh Hunt

Ian

I'll never forget how snugly I fitted under Andi's arm when I first stuck my head above the poetry parapet in Bristol, and how funny and fearless she was. It's impossible to accept she isn't still in her Dove Street eyrie, high above the city, so I'm not going to; she is there. She'll always be there.

Strictly Cwmdonkin

A forecast of heavy rain all day, with possible thunder and lightning, had us scurrying for Swansea - in particular, Uplands, where Dylan Thomas maintains a ubiquitous presence 70 years after his death.

First stop, the appealing suburban semi that is 5 Cwmdonkin Drive, his birthplace.  

The Thomas family moved in when the house was new, in 1914, and lived there until 1937. The rooms have been furnished with items that give a feel of how it would have looked when the Thomas family were in residence - with the help of a woman who'd been maid there when she was 15 and Dylan 16. There are also some surviving original features that date from that era.

First stop, the grand front bedroom in which Dylan was born on 27th October 1914 (though usually it was reserved for lodgers). 

Dylan

The next bedroom along the landing was used by Dylan's elder sister, Nancy. 

The view from the second bedroom window

Along the landing

By now I was getting flashbacks to my grandmother's house, although hers was rather less grand. For example, unlike 5 Cwmdonkin Drive, it didn't originally have an upstairs bathroom - the smallest of the four upstairs bedrooms was converted for that purpose. The Thomas's house had not only a bathroom, but also a separate toilet. 

I couldn't help thinking of Dylan's observation that 'poetry is not the most important thing in life... I'd much rather lie in a hot bath reading Agatha Christie and sucking sweets.'

What in my grandmother's house was a bathroom (for the lodger) was Dylan's tiny bedroom in Cwmdonkin Drive ... 

... and perhaps the most atmospheric room of all. It's fascinating to think that two-thirds of his published work was written here. 

Also grander than my grandmother's house was the back bedroom with its bay window and view of Swansea Bay. This was Dylan's parents' room. 

Downstairs, the parlour (or best room) has an impressive Arts and Crafts-style fireplace ...

... and more of a front door than an internal door. (Loving the fingerplate.) Apparently, it was rarely used and the door kept locked.

Whereas almost all the rooms in my grandmother's house were filled with beds to accommodate her and my grandfather's 11 offspring, the Thomases, with their two children, were blessed with rather more space. This meant that the second downstairs room could be used as Dylan's father's study.

In one corner, a short video of Jimmy Carter plays, in which he explains his love for Dylan, his favourite poet. (I always knew he was a good man, and now I like him even more.) 

The third room downstairs, which my grandmother called the kitchen in her house and was both a sitting room and a dining room,  fulfilled much the same purpose for the Thomas family, but here was rather more loftily referred to as the dining or breakfast room.

The next room is the kitchen (the scullery in my grandmother's house). So many familiar artefacts here from my own childhood, like the wooden carpet sweeper (I'd completely forgotten!) and the mincer clamped to the table. 

The larder

The wash house and coal shed

Having taken our leave of 5 Cwmdonkin Drive, we drove to the Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea's former docklands (now rather pretentiously called the 'Maritime Quarter'), where there are lots of interesting displays about Dylan and the legacy of his 39 short years. 

There's a very poignant moment when a young Benjamin Zephaniah appears in a reading that's more an exhortation of 'Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night'.

Even sadder, a photo of Dylan post-mortem and a sculpture cast from his death mask. 

Then back to Uplands and a splosh around Cwmdonkin Park, where the young Dylan spent so much of his time playing, and which so influenced his writing. It's full of memorials to the greatest of poets. 

We stopped for an ice cream, which I'm sure Dylan must have done too, although probably not for a Sidoli's Cookie Dough and Cappuccino Mocha Swirl double scoop in a waffle cone. 

'The ball I threw while playing in the park has not yet reached the ground'