Category: Literary

Dylan Thomas, No Sign Bar and my Followers

No Sign Bar: Dylan Thomas’s watering hole.

Nobody followed me to the No Sign Bar, Swansea – a regular haunt of Dylan Thomas. Seated next to the window, I searched inside of my handbag for Collected Stories by Dylan Thomas and found The Followers

A ping from my phone confirmed a signal, but I ignored the emails. I sat in the bar Thomas renamed the Wine Vaults. I read the opening lines of the story, but there was no sign of the beer I had just ordered. Without anything to quench my thirst, there was nothing I could do apart from read on. Between words, I felt compelled to search for two pairs of eyes outside of the window, but there was no sign of anyone.

Seated next to the window, I searched inside my handbag for Collected Stories by Dylan Thomas.

Outside the window, ‘the rain spat and drizzled past the street lamps.’ No one wore ‘squeaking galoshes, with mackintosh collars up and bowlers and trilbies.’ Alas, the ‘rattle of bony trams’ was silenced long ago. Only the swish of car tyres, hum of engines and slamming of car doors filled the silence on the streets. Gazing at the decaying red window frames, I did not see ‘a young man with his arm around a girl’. Instead, I glimpsed a young couple hand in hand dashing across the road while there was a break in the traffic. Outside, there was a mass of coloured jackets and everyone wore jeans, leggings or trousers. No one looked inside the tatty building. They didn’t seem to care that Dylan Thomas had once frequented this watering hole.

Dylan Thomas (1914-1953). This famous Welshman wrote poems, short stories and scripts for film and radio, which he often performed himself.

Reading the short story, I pursued the followers, as they scurried through the alley. Inside No Sign Bar, I could smell the old musty wine cellar. No one was responsible for the spontaneous spark of colour in the open fire. The pitted floorboards had been battered by tired and drunken feet for centuries. Words echoed around cavernous room. Perhaps, these were the words that inspired Dylan Thomas’s story The Followers – his only ghost story. And I heard the rise and fall of the Welsh accent that probably escaped into the pages of Thomas’s mind, as he imagined the story. I read the final sentence, ‘And we went our separate ways.’ I departed.

Artist’s impression of the ancient Salubrious Passage. Thomas renamed it Paradise Alley in The Followers

Near to Paradise Alley, I heard a voice echo.’  Spare some change, madam?’ The homeless soul was clutching a synthetic, fleece blanket. His watery, bloodshot eyes regarded me as he rolled himself a cigarette. I spared him fifty pence, but this wouldn’t even buy him a beer. He caught the meagre offering with a grateful nod that punched my conscience.

I heard the distance tapping of footsteps and turned around

I ran to the car park. The rain drizzled until diluted my memory of the bar. I heard the distance tapping of footsteps and turned around. Thankfully, there was no sign of anyone following me. Checking Twitter, I did note I had two more followers.

No Sign Bar and The Followers

No Sign Bar is believed to be Swansea’s oldest pub and dates to 1690. The wine cellars date back to the 15th century. The name ‘No Sign originates from legislation of licencing when public bars had to have a recognisable sign. This building was not public house and did not require a sign, hence was later given the name No Sign to announce its presence!

Dylan Thomas Collected Stories

Dylan Thomas frequented No Sign Bar, as a young man. No Sign Bar is featured as the Wine Vaults in Dylan Thomas’s story.

Here are useful links if you wish to visit Swansea and find out more about the writer, poet and playwright.

http://www.dylanthomasexperience.co.uk/
http://nosignwinebar.com/dylan-thomas-history-no-sign-bar-swansea/
https://www.swansea.gov.uk/dtc
http://www.5cwmdonkindrive.com/guided_tours.php
http://www.dylanthomaswales.org.uk/

 

 

Virginia Woolf and Social Media

‘As a woman my country is the whole world.’ Three Guineas, Woolf

My country is the world. There are no borders, no passports and no countries in the world of social media; only portals to other people’s imagination and musings.

In Three Guineas, Virginia Wolf wrote, “As a woman I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman, my country is the whole world.”  And via social media, I have connected with writers from all over the world.  My endless stream of consciousness travels around the world through: tweets, my blog and Facebook posts.  People of the world open the virtual door to peek at a representation of my world, and I can walk over the threshold to visit their thoughts.

“A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.”

I weave in and out of articles, thoughts, pictures and moments of others. Everyone is documenting stories from their own viewpoint with unique and shared images.  I have the liberty to hop aboard someone’s narrative then return home to my own world.  Social media allows me to explore the texture of other people’s lives to search for inspiration.

A writing room of my own, connected to the world.

Like Virginia Woolf, I have a room of my own, but I have the company of a computer connected to the world.

While contemplating this brave new world, I wondered if Virginia Woolf would have engaged in social media.

Owing to the power of social media, I could knock on the virtual door of an internationally acclaimed Woolf scholar. Professor Maggie Humm wrote this in her email:

Waiting for Snapshots of Bloomsbury

“I think Virginia might well have used social media. She did write for Vogue with a photo of herself; did photograph from the age of 15 (I included over a hundred of these in my  Snapshots of Bloomsbury); spoke on the BBC several times and enjoyed seeing a range of films from The Bengal Lancer to newsreels.”

Maggie Humm’s eloquent response made me feel as it I was speaking to Virginia Woolf, in cyberspace.

Snapshots of Bloomsbury

Snapshots of Bloomsbury   showcases the photographs of Virginia Woolf and her sister, Vanessa Bell.   Humm’s commentary provides a critical insight into Woolf’s world and ‘the culture and artistry of the period’. Virginia Woolf represented her intimate world in photographs, decades before we became attached to our mobile phones. Now, this is a book I would be proud to own, but I will place it in my battered briefcase. Snapshots of Bloomsbury needs to be enjoyed in the physical rather than digital form.  However, I can’t help wondering what images and words Woolf would have chosen to share via social media.   If only, I could invite Virginia Woolf to my Chat Room.