How good was the Boyo?

When Dylan Thomas first lived at the Boathouse, Laugharne (tel. Laugharne 68) there was no electricity, no running water and the rats took liberties. Today it is a spick and span little gimcrack museum. I went there recently hoping perhaps for a faint psychic whiff of Wales’ most famous son. But the place has been tarted up to such an extent that gawping at the memorabilia behind the glass all I felt was a terrifying sense of alienation from the recent past. The other visitors were mostly Welsh. They wandered grimly from room to room, passing critical comments about the meagre furniture and complaining about the entry fee. In the upstairs living-room I overheard an elderly Welsh man sum up Thomas’ life to his friend as ‘pathetic, really, when you come to think about it’. Many who plough on to the tragi-comic end of Andrew Lycett’s Dylan Thomas: A New Life will no doubt shake their heads in sorrowful agreement.