Dylan Thomas: Unseen photos show the poet in a fit of rage
A quick-thinking Strand receptionist told the photographer to document Thomas's outburst then tucked the evidence away, said Jeff Towns, a Dylan Thomas expert and author. He bought the photos and got the back story from the receptionist's daughter, telling Cerys Matthews on BBC Radio 6 Music he believed Thomas's violent tantrum was the result of him being desperate for money.
"There's one picture of him looking immaculate [with a] big smile," he said. "No cheque and he's pulling the desk apart like a rock and roller throwing a TV out the window."The photos and story appear in Towns' new book, the Wilder Shores of Dylan Thomas.
"I got this letter out the blue from a woman who said her mother had worked at Strand Films are straight away I knew how important it was," he said, explaining how it was the only time Thomas had "a proper job with a salary".Thomas definitely worked at Strand he said, because one of his friends, Julian MacLaren-Ross, wrote about it a book. "He writes about what they got up to at the [Strand] office, so everything rang true," he said.
"Plus I know that [Thomas] was forever living from hand to mouth," he said of the Swansea-born writer, who had a wife and two children to support at the time. "So the guy was desperate for money and obviously when he went in he thought he was going to trouser a few quid to get through the next few days. "Even just to get to the pub that night. "When it wasn't there, he flipped."
Originally from east London, Towns has been antiquarian book dealer for more than 50 years and currently runs Dylans Bookstore in Swansea.He has written several books about the Welsh bard and holds an important collection of his letters, photos and memorabilia. The outburst in Strand Films was unusual, he argued."He got into trouble when he was drunk, but he was a pacifist in his own way."
Towns said Thomas, who was only 5ft 6in (1.68m), always said he was above average height "for Wales". "He knew he was small, but if a big soldier came in and started being jingoistic he would challenge them and get thrown out on his backside," he said. "He didn't fly off the handle a lot - there are a couple of times when things went a bit wrong - but by and large he was passive and talked his way out of problems." The poet's fans were his worst enemies in some ways, he said.
"In America his favourite whisky was a bourbon called Old Grandad. "People would turn up at his hotel room with a bottle and want him to drink it in front of them."When people were feeding him lots of whisky he could get irascible."I think he liked to be the centre of attention, in a pub he would tell great stories and people would buy him drinks, but I don't think he was known for a temper in any way. "[His wife] Caitlin had the temper and she would give him a right hiding."
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By 1970, Black Sabbath - originally going by the name of Earth - had gained a huge following in the US and UK with the release of their first album. Ozzy quit the band in 1978 and four years later divorced his first wife Thelma Mayfair, with whom he had two children, amid his ongoing substance abuse problems. He went on to marry second wife Sharon, who helped him transform into a successful solo artist and the couple had three children together. Ozzy gained a whole new audience of fans with the family's reality TV show The Osbournes in 2001.
