QUACK TWICE...

Funny how things spring to mind.  Yesterday I mentioned that my Mum invariably addressed me as `my duck` when I was but a boy.  As I was nodding off yet again I got to thinking where else I had heard that term of endearment.  And it came to me that, of course, it was in Dylan Thomas`s masterpiece, Under Milk Wood.  And it was Rosie Probert (From Duck Lane, Jack - quack twice and ask for Rosie) who described Blind Captain Cat not only as `my duck` but a whole lot of other things besides.

Best thing I can do is set out the relevant  bit of that unforgettable dialogue (I have the happy knack of recalling pretty much the whole of Thomas`s play for radio) between Rosie and the Captain.  It goes like this:-

ROSIE PROBERT 

What seas were you rocking

My little deck hand

My favourite husband

In your seaboots and hunger

My duck, my whaler

My honey, my daddy

My pretty sugar sailor.

With my name on your belly 
When you were a boy

Long long ago?

CAPTAIN CAT

I`ll tell you no lies.

The only sea I saw

Was the seasaw sea

With you riding on it.

Lie down, lie easy.

Let me shipwreck in your thighs.

ROSIE PROBERT

Knock twice, Jack

At the door of my grave

And ask for Rosie.

As I said, funny how things spring to mind.  Well, mine anyway.

MISSING PERSONS..

Sometimes, in the dead of night, a call of nature arouses me from my slumbers.  And then I find it difficult to get back to sleep again.   Why?  Well, I find my head spinning with music, the lyrics of songs and, not for the first time last night the lilting rhythm of the language of Under Milk Wood.

When it was shown on BBC Four back in June, I recorded the BBC Wales production of Dylan Thomas`s masterpiece, which was beautifully done by a distinguished all-Welsh cast.  So I have seen it quite a few times and never fail to be captivated by the quality of acting, interpretation and production with the result that large passages of it are firmly embedded in my head, which come back to me as I try to resume my slumbers - I should try counting sheep, I suppose, but there is so much about the good folk of Llareggub that defies unconsciousness.

But last night, I realised just how much BBC Wales had short changed us when, for production reasons I assume, sections of the original play for voices had had to be cut.  I went through who and what seemed to be missing and, as the starless, bible-black, moonless night wore on, I recalled Captain Cat hearing the naughty forfeiting children tumble and rhyme on the cobbles, with Gwennie calling the boys to kiss her or give her a penny.   And Billy, Johnny Cristo and Dicky answering her calls with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

And Bessie Bighead was missing too, once and only once kissed by long dead Gomer Owen because he was dared.   And no sign of Cherry Owen and Mrs. Cherry Owen, laughing delightedly together as over the bucket he went, sprawling and bawling, and the floor was all flagons and eels.  And no Lord Cut-Glass in his kitchen full of time or PC Attila Rees, dead to the dark and still foghorning; and no Utah Watkins counting the wife faced sheep as they leap the fences on the hill.

So, maybe one day BBC Wales will fill in the gaps and give voice to the missing persons in a follow up version of their original triumph. If not,  I suspect my nocturnal disturbances will continue to be bribed and lullabied to sleep in the silent black, bandaged night by the voices, hopes, dreams and despairs of that lulled and dumbfound town.    

(Like my recent discovery of dodder, it seems the lure of Under Milk Wood just grows on you.)

AWAY FROM IT ALL..

Well, as if the last few days of Scottish Referendum pandemonium haven`t been bad enough, the next few days and weeks promise to be even more annoying. Today is one of those days when it might be best to avoid television, radio, social media and all the other sounding trumpets that assault our senses and find somewhere just to get away from it all.  Away from politics, away from conflicts, away from pointless anxieties.

I`ve been looking around and since I can`t resume my escape to the south west coast path for another week or so, once more I find Dylan Thomas providing the answer with my anti-hero, Nogood Boyo, to whom I find myself drawn and with whom I seem more and more to identify. He really did have life sorted out:-

"Fishermen grumble to their nets.  Nogood Boyo goes out in the dinghy Zanzibar, ships the oars, drifts slowly in the dab-filled bay and, lying on his back in the unbaled water, among crabs` legs and tangled lines, looks up at the spring sky and mutters contentedly to himself, `I don`t know who`s up there....and I don`t care.`"

SOUND AND VISION..

To begin at the beginning.   It was January, 1954.   My father had bought a television set the year before promising my mother how much she would enjoy seeing the coronation whilst his real motivation had been the Matthews Cup Final when Blackpool beat Bolton Wanderers 4-3 in a memorable encounter.   Television in those days was limited - just one BBC channel as far as I recall - and so radio was still a popular alternative in our household.

  

And we were entertained by such rib-tickling shows as Take it From Here, The Goon Show and perhaps most bizarre of all, Educating Archie, which revolved around a ventriloquist having problems with his adolescent dummy, the aforementioned Archie. Even then, in my own 14-year old burgeoning adolescence, I could see the absurdity of having a ventriloquist on the radio.

And then on that January evening along came Dylan Thomas`s Under Milk Wood.  I`m not sure I was supposed to listen to it because, at the time, there were parental concerns that it might have been a shade too risqué for my youthful innocence and in any case Thomas, like Brendan Behan, was alleged to have been possessed of a lifestyle, a persona and characteristics that might not provide memorable literature or a shining example for the callow youths of the time.  How wrong can you be?

But I managed to hear it all right.....and again a couple of nights later when, in response to public demand for increased doses of risqueness, Under Milk Wood was repeated.  And what wonders it evoked; the music of the language full of lyrical, dreamy, flowing prose bringing fantasies to my listener`s mind of those people and places that  Dylan Thomas mustered from his own imagination and experience in observing life, death, hopes and dreams in Laugharne and New Quay.  So many characters with so much to say and I found myself identifying with Llareggub`s very own recalcitrant scamp, Nogood Boyo, who wanted to be good boyo, but no-one would let him.  Maybe that was the root cause of my penchant for minor rebellion.

Fast forward 30 years or so and I found myself on an extended management development course at Bristol University`s School for Advanced Urban Studies.   The course was run by very demanding people who were keen to show just how terribly clever they were.   We were given tasks and I began to feel like one of Mrs. Ogmore - Pritchard`s two shambling phantoms, Mr. Ogmore and Mr. Pritchard.   We were given tasks.  ("In order.  I must take my cold bath which is good for me.  I must take my salts which are nature`s friend.  I must make my herb tea which is free from tannin.  And have a charcoal biscuit which is good for me.....")   And we were sent to bed and expected to prepare for the next morning`s management task.

Fortunately, I had taken my copy of Dent`s  1974 edition of Under Milk Wood (price 85p) and I turned to it, like an old friend, for consolation and escape, losing myself in my own dream of Rosie Probert ("33, Duck Lane.  Quack twice and ask for Rosie") who Captain Cat implored to "Lie down.  Lie easy.   Let me shipwreck in your thighs."

Some years ago, I bought the video (yes, the video) of the 1972 Burton/Taylor/O`Toole film and I also had the CD of the original 1954 radio broadcast which I still have in the car as well as my 85p volume, courtesy of Dent and Co.  So Under Milk Wood has been something of an obsession of mine, perhaps even a passion.   And a few nights ago, I managed to record the BBC Wales television production, shown on BBC Four, with an entire cast of Welsh actors - Michael Sheen, Jonathan Pryce, Matthew Rhys, Sian Phillips, Bryn Terfel, Katherine Jenkins, Charlotte Church and even Sir Tom Jones as a convincing Captain Cat.   Well, it`s not unusual.

It was terrific and where the 1954 radio version provided the sound of genius, the 2014 television version provided the vision and brought light to the original play for voices. It beautifully, sensitively and accurately captured the images and the feeling of Thomas`s imagination and if you`re quick, you can catch it on BBC i player in the next few days.   Perhaps the best compliment I can give is that it made my own `wind shaken wood spring awake for the second dark time this one Spring day.`